Actually using Roy

[MookieRah]

So this is going to be a work in progress thread as I attempt to pick apart the good and bads of Roy and where one can use him effectively. General rule of thumb is that he is complete trash against floaty characters and heavy CC characters, but he doesn't seem half bad against the spacies and Falcon. Perhaps those three are the only effective characters to use Roy against, but those are also very common tournament characters. Right now these are still listed as matches that are worse than even, but I wonder if that is because Roy is mostly underdeveloped in the current meta. I also wonder on the viability of reverse blazer on Jiggs. I'm not sure if people even remember this technique or not, but I was working on this crap back in 2004, and while it seemed effective in team matches at the time, I found it overall not viable in singles due to it being very high risk. I'll talk about this more later.

My question is, could one use Roy to great affect in the current meta by capitalizing on his good matchups and employing a secondary for the rest?

The Good:
As I began playing this game again I've spent a lot of time reading discussions in the Marth forums. There is currently a lot of dicussion on optimal play, and what it means to play optimally in general, but mostly with Marth. A lot of the same things that one should use as Marth to excel would also function quite well for Roy.


TheCrimsonBlur posted an amazing post a while back that talks about the importance of movement to the future of melee's metagame. If you haven't read it, click here.

This also applies to Roy, which has almost as good of movement options as Marth. According to M2K's old info dump, Roy is number 6 on the wavedash lengths, while Marth is 4, and Yoshi is 5. He's tied in horizontal movement with Marth, and runs only slightly slower than him on the ground. Another important aspect is that his grab range is only slightly less than Marth's. So in essence almost everything that Marth should employ in regards to movement would be nearly identical with Roy. One should threaten their opponent with movement in their neutral game, using d-tilt to poke and bait and punish with grabs.

One very large facet to playing Marth optimally is choosing strategies and options that either limit or remove choices from your opponent. For the most part it means that one should attempt to juggle and rack up percent in this manner, as Marth is very strong from underneath most characters. This also applies in a lot of ways with Roy, and in some ways it's both harder and easier for Roy to set up this type of situation. While Roy's utilt is not as usable as Marth's, he has the ability to shffl quick u-airs that Marth cannot, and against fast fallers Roy does quite a good job of maintaining juggles for a large span of percentages due to the fact that you can use the tip to juggle after the sweetspot has too much knockback.

The Bad:
Obviously Roy falls a bit flat here in comparison with Marth, as Roy cannot punish with safe aerials like Marth can. I imagine at this point Roy's best option would be to punish aerials with side B in similar fashion to Marth. As far as other options, off the top of my head I'm uncertain. Likewise, Roy's OoS options aren't as robust as Marth. We'd have to explore Roy's moves under a microscope and find out when we should really use them. This will require a good bit of testing, and I hope I'm not the only one on board with trying to figure this out.

Crouch canceling wrecks Roy hard, but what can we do about it? At what percents can his various attacks break CC? What are his options before then? I would imagine that he has options to abuse CC somehow, but what is the risk-reward on them?

The Uncertain:
I'm going to just flat out assume that there is no way Roy's edge guarding is as good as Marth's, but how effective is it? What are his best options? From everything that I've seen of the most recent high level players using him, he stays mostly on the stage (for obvious reasons due to his fall speed), but does he have other options? Can he still threaten his opponents off stage enough to create a similar mixup situation as Marth?

Against Spacies:
It's obvious to everyone but worth stating that Roy also can chain grab the spacies, as well as combo into powerful attacks to knock them off the edge like Marth. It seems like this is easier to set up with Roy in some aspects, as he can employ his dtilt to great effect in the early percentages to continue the chain grab. On FD especially, Roy can do a lot of damage off of a grab or dtilt, and move on to edge guarding for the kill.

Against Jiggs:
So at first that whole reverse blazer thing sounds pretty bad, and honestly it probably isn't viable, but for fun I played a local Jiggs player (he was new, so he was not at a competitive level) and was able to land them quite reliably in several situations. I realize that a great Jiggs player would not give one many chances, but Roy is capable of using reverse blazer on Jiggs out of pretty much all his aerials, on wakeup, and more. If one played on the tighter stages, even with fairly good DI it *might* still be a OHKO. I haven't had much time to test as I have a lot going on in my life, but eventually I'll get some data on this and how much DI plays into it. I'm hoping to discover that it would only not work on Jiggs if he smash DI's in most situations.

In any case, this is it for now. I'll update as soon as I find out more.

 

[V3ctorMan]

I saw your message MookieRah, and i"m interested... posting here, cuz my inbox is being super lame... I'll post my thoughts at a later time, (my next 2 days off) so likely on Monday/Tuesday...

 

[Double Helix]

So I was actually drawn to this thread simply because of the name. The only good Roy player I even know of is Neo, and I'm not sure how he stood up to the rest of the community back then. Honestly, playing Roy? Seriously? That is probably the most awesome thing I've heard. As a Ness main I feel your pain. There is one old-school Ness, and one current one that is at a really high level. I would love to see your progress on this. I don't play Fire Emblem, so I am sad that I cannot make a cheesy reference of encouragement. Either way, it seems like the meta-game is evolving enough to make low-tier heroes either completely unheard of, or on equal footing. I want to see how this goes, so I will watch this thread, though I will be able to offer no input. I am kinda a newbie and still trying to push my Ness to the limits that Mofo has gotten to, and beyond. Good luck guys!

 

[CyberZixx]

I support this effort to use Roy and expand his metagame.

 

[MookieRah]

The idea has been around for a long time that the low tiers had at least a few good matchups that they could excel in. The most recent example being TL against Jigglypuff. An older example is Yoshi and Marth (not sure if this still holds up, but I heard this a lot back in the day).Roy doesn't seem half bad on certain matchups, despite his weaknesses.

Could Roy possibly be better against those matchups than Marth? Probably not, but it's worth looking into. If anything else playing Roy in a safe way, using his dash dance to threaten space, spacing attacks well, and punishing your opponents, should enhance ones Marth game on a fundamental level. It's definitely a good training exercise to strip away a few options and focus more on movement.

 

[Ripple]

you should probably point out that even though roy's attacks are basically the same as marth's, his offense is completely different

 

[V3ctorMan]

The idea has been around for a long time that the low tiers had at least a few good matchups that they could excel in. The most recent example being TL against Jigglypuff. An older example is Yoshi and Marth (not sure if this still holds up, but I heard this a lot back in the day).Roy doesn't seem half bad on certain matchups, despite his weaknesses.

Could Roy possibly be better against those matchups than Marth? Probably not, but it's worth looking into. If anything else playing Roy in a safe way, using his dash dance to threaten space, spacing attacks well, and punishing your opponents, should enhance ones Marth game on a fundamental level. It's definitely a good training exercise to strip away a few options and focus more on movement.

I still hold very strongly on the Yoshi vs Marth...

<3 my favorite MU, and i've had great success with it in the current metagame..

 

[MookieRah]

<3 my favorite MU, and i've had great success with it in the current metagame..

Now that's what I'm talking about.

I think it would be possible to command a low-tier army if you focused on two things:

1: Universal tech skill and abilities
2: Only using certain characters for certain matchups

The advantage of this, if one pulled it off, is that few people rarely have character knowledge of the lower tiered chars. So if you knew how to play 4 low tiers quite well and solidly knew their best matchups/stages, then you would have the novelty factor on your side. Not only that, it progresses the metagame and the scene gets to see characters they don't normally see.

 

[CyberZixx]

You could like a pokemon trainer of low tiers. I choose you, Roy. Roy, return! Go, Mewtwo!

 

[MookieRah]

So I played a bit more with people yesterday, specifically the Jiggs player, and it is looking more and more like reverse blazer is legit, especially on Yoshi's Story. One can reverse blazer OoS in many situations like out of shielded tilts, smashes, pound, etc., if an approach is predictable Roy can reverse blazer out of any of puffs aerials and pound, and very likely can even CC into blazer on many moves. Even with good standard DI it still is a one hit KO on Jiggs if you land it in the air or on any platform. The verdict is still out on whether or not smash DI would save her on Yoshi's, but that's not a problem. If they do DI safely, or if you hit with the second or third hit of blazer, Jiggs is sent flying away so far that Roy is unpunishable and Jiggs is still left in a worse position. Also, if you blazer from near center of the stage even if you whiff or hit the shield, you will likely land fairly safely on a platform and more than likely recover from it without putting yourself in that a bad position.

In essence, Roy has a rest on Jiggs that is much easier to pull off, can potentially kill at 0%, and is much safer to use.

 

[MookieRah]

I'm putting this as a separate post due to it being a separate idea:

As I have stated I think we all should re-evaluate Roy's moves and options. I've been playing around with blazer on Jiggs, but I decided to see what it looked like on other characters. To my surprise, I found that it is quite effective. Not as a killing move, but as a way for Roy to deal with shield pressure.

Basically, on BF, Yoshi's, and Dreamland, Roy can use reverse blazer out of shield as a means to escape pressure and land straight onto a middle platform. It's quite fast, and it might be enough to make it hard to punish even on shield. At the very least if it hits Roy's opponent the knockback of the reverse blazer will likely make it impossible to punish Roy at all for it. Not only that, if the character isn't an extreme fast faller, they will go above the top platform, so it will put them in a negative postion with Roy below them. This also seems to work with an angled blazer as well. It most often sends Roy's opponent upwards in the center of the line made by Roy's blazer to the platform with no DI. Not as good, but it should still function well as an escape, and I wonder if this will work as an anti-air.

The blazer escape would also likely work on FD, but only if it lands. The landing lag from it is so much that if it hit your opponents shield they should have more than enough time to retaliate. A normal blazer might even be unsafe if it hits. I'm going to test this as best I can, I'm thinking lvl 9 computers would give me a good indication as to when characters can react out of the tumble from blazer, but so far it looks like the stun is pretty good.

I think it will be funny if this ends up working, because blazer is something that was labeled as a "n00bish" attack. Also, the idea of a move as an escape from a negative position is something that just wasn't considered very valuable up until recently. In any case, I hope this is effective, as it will give Roy a really good and annoying OoS option that I think is also immune to CC.

 

[Renth]

MookieRah still exists?

(random fanboy post from 500 years ago)

wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow

 

[Double Helix]

We all know that low tiers have bad matchups, but I think that with enough work you don't necessarily need them for just a few matchups, though that would probably be ideal. I mean, I am a newbie and love my main, Ness. But why is it that you shouldn't just use a high-tier for certain matchups? I mean, I would probably use Ness against any character except Sheik. If I do switch from Ness it would only be for a few matchups. I am not sure if that is different for people who love Roy because I do not know Roy's options or movement, but it seems like you would do fine based one your reasoning in most matchups because of the lack of knowledge. Like, why play a better but known and practiced for matchup when you could play a 30-70 matchup and just know the matchup so much better that it becomes 60-40. As you said, it would cause the metagame to progress and allow people to see loved Nintendo characters that don't get the Smash Bros. love they deserve. Not to mention, learning four low tiers is super demanding.

Maybe I misunderstood your point, so all of that could be moot. Either way, seeing Roy finally pushed to his limits would be awesome, since I enjoyed watching Neo play him when I was looking up older videos.

Side note: Could someone explain reverse blazer to me? I am not even close to trying to pick up Roy.

 

[MookieRah]

Like, why play a better but known and practiced for matchup when you could play a 30-70 matchup and just know the matchup so much better that it becomes 60-40.

Because it doesn't become 60-40. I used to do the whole Metwo thing, and I can tell you a hard match doesn't become desirable just because you opponent doesn't know the matchup. Mewtwo vs Marth or Falcon didn't become even or better because of my matchup knowledge. It was still an uphill battle.

Not to mention, learning four low tiers is super demanding.

I don't think it's that rough, really. I wouldn't recommend this to someone starting out, but if you've been playing the game a long time it doesn't take an incredibly long time to pick up a character. This is made easier by learning only a handful of matches really well for each. The only person that really tried this was Azen back in the day at Melee FC (either 3 or 6, i don't remember) and he had pretty much retired before this event and did really well. People chalked it up as Azen being amazing and not that a low-tier army was actually viable.

Side note: Could someone explain reverse blazer to me? I am not even close to trying to pick up Roy.​

​

Reverse blazer is like reverse dolphin slash with Marth. It's basically reversing the up-B, which actually gives the move quite a bit of horizontal range. In the case of Roy, the first hit of blazer has A LOT of vertical knock back. What's interesting about it is that it's static, the knock back doesn't change based on % on your opponent. Also, this first hit has enough power to OHKO Jiggs on Yoshi's even with fairly good DI it seems. It can still kill on other stages as well, but you would likely have to land it in the air (not super hard really) or get lucky and land it when they have poor DI.​

 

[VeriC]

I really want to keep this thread alive. Not to hype anything up or get anyone's hopes up too high, but I think I may have developed some sort of new aerial game for roy. However, it still requires extensive testing.

 

[Ripple]

If you're thinking Roys best aerial is side-b, You are correct.

 

[Double Helix]

I can see what you mean now MookieRah. Thanks for the info. I have a friend who enjoys playing Roy but isn't that great so the more information I can get on him the better. Also I may be able to help the community grow.

 

[Elyssa Xey Hexen]

The only way I see improving roy at all is merely getting better at using his decent moves that he has while avoiding the bad ones entirely.
-Better decision making.

Roy's moves are crap. Most of his moves he is in more lag than the opponent is because of how the moves ineffectiveness. Take a look at marth compared to Roy. Mookie, you mentioned how Roy can shuffle Uairs faster than Marth can. True, but it is not all that effective when the opponent is in less stun time than Marth. Of all the hitboxes on Uair, Marth does at the lowest 9 damage. Roy does a highest of 9 and a low of 6. Even then, Marth has two hitboxes which grant a higher base knockback. All in all, Uair doesn't force teching like Marth's Uair does if it hits. The stun time is even worse unless you always hit with the right part of Uair. Oh, and lets go and say that to even get close to the same stun time, you have to space uair poorly which means you probably will get trades very frequently.

I think the old Roy sterotype of only Dtilt and Grab is pretty good. Its like the only good things he has.

While Marth can get away with juggling you forever until you die and force you offstage, Roy cannot do that at lower percents. So, perhaps he should instead do what he can to get the opponent offstage as quickly as possible. Don't shuffle Uairs on someone on a platform. Neutral B, Fair, Nair, or Bair to get them off and offstage as soon as possible.

 

[MookieRah]

The only way I see improving roy at all is merely getting better at using his decent moves that he has while avoiding the bad ones entirely.

Except the idea of exploring some of Roy's "bad moves" might be a good idea. The more I experiment with blazer the more effective it actually seems. If blazer lands, Roy is likely safe, as the knockback on it is weird, static, and usually gives Roy the ability to land before his opponent. If you angle it, that makes the hit more likely to occur in the middle hitboxes, which seem really good for knockback and the angle makes it so there isn't much time before Roy lands if he lands on a platform. It also does seem to function as a good anti-air as it comes out so fast, goes so far, and seems to eat moves. I'll have to do some human testing to confirm, but from my solo play it seems totally legit. If Roy is positioned to where he can land on a platform then any opponent in the air is pretty much free percent.

Also, one can get the nice reverse blazer hitbox without actually reversing it. If you just do a regular fully angled blazer when your opponent is behind it will hit behind him like a reverse. I already knew this, but I didn't really think about it much till I used blazer in a sort of combo situation.

 

[Double Helix]

I think the old Roy sterotype of only Dtilt and Grab is pretty good. Its like the only good things he has.

While this may be true for the old meta, I see nothing wrong with re-evaluating Roy's options and advancing his metagame to compete with the current. I am not saying you are incorrect in saying that it is good. But if this is all he has then why would he be higher on the tier list than Bowser? Bowser has more options than Dtilt and grab.

Obviously this is a stretched argument. All I mean is Roy has not been played in forever simply because nobody has enhanced his metagame or taken the time to do anything with him. If you compare the last time a Roy player faced a Fox player, then had a Roy player face a Fox player now, the Fox player will have changed, but unless the Roy is trying newer things, the Roy player would not looked much different. It seems like you are content with losing, based on what you say.

"Making better decisions" does not necessarily mean "use only good moves." Mix-ups are a great way to keep from being read, and if you catch them DI-ing the wrong way, it could make a combo happen. Based on what I have seen and read, you essentially need to figure out how to counter CC at low percents, and how viable "bad" moves are.

 

[Elyssa Xey Hexen]

While this may be true for the old meta, I see nothing wrong with re-evaluating Roy's options and advancing his metagame to compete with the current. I am not saying you are incorrect in saying that it is good. But if this is all he has then why would he be higher on the tier list than Bowser? Bowser has more options than Dtilt and grab. Obviously this is a stretched argument. All I mean is Roy has not been played in forever simply because nobody has enhanced his metagame or taken the time to do anything with him. If you compare the last time a Roy player faced a Fox player, then had a Roy player face a Fox player now, the Fox player will have changed, but unless the Roy is trying newer things, the Roy player would not looked much different. It seems like you are content with losing, based on what you say.

Characters don't change with time. The hitbox that was good or bad 5 years ago will still be the same now. It all depends upon how you use it. So, the players using them will make the difference. If a fox player is more spot on and makes far less technical errors and punishes heavy after a single mistake you have to do the same. The only problem is that roy is pretty bad. Fox will convert a poor choice into lots of damage or really any character will against Roy. So, again, I think roy needs to make better decisions to minimize moves in situations that are bad which can allow the opponent to get. How will you convert your opponents over commitment to a move into a strong advantage? Dtilt or Grab will typically be your best options.

"Making better decisions" does not necessarily mean "use only good moves." Mix-ups are a great way to keep from being read, and if you catch them DI-ing the wrong way, it could make a combo happen. Based on what I have seen and read, you essentially need to figure out how to counter CC at low percents, and how viable "bad" moves are.

There is some correlation between a good decision made involved using a good move. Mix-ups have no place in punishment except when there is clearly no way to further your advantage. I'll use Marth as analogy. You could Fthrow fox/falco offstage, but you really cannot guarantee taking a stock they have ways to work themselves to the stage or ledge (at the very least). You can however guarantee a stock by the CG -> utilt/uair/fair juggling -> edgeguard. Or you can work into a combo tree to fox/falco to losing a stock. Even then, you do not necessarily have to rely upon mix-ups with Roy given that he is almost identical to Marth in the form of movement. Marth or Roy can out pace their opponents on the ground (majority of them) (work into a good spot), then convert on the opponents over commitment or lose of stage. Main difference is that Roy cannot punish as heavily as Marth can except on a few characters.

Except the idea of exploring some of Roy's "bad moves" might be a good idea. The more I experiment with blazer the more effective it actually seems. If blazer lands, Roy is likely safe, as the knockback on it is weird, static, and usually gives Roy the ability to land before his opponent. If you angle it, that makes the hit more likely to occur in the middle hitboxes, which seem really good for knockback and the angle makes it so there isn't much time before Roy lands if he lands on a platform. It also does seem to function as a good anti-air as it comes out so fast, goes so far, and seems to eat moves.

Every move will have its place at some point. After some amount of time, I would expect you are very familiar with your characters traits and moveset and really nothing should surprise you. So at that point, I think it comes down to evaluating if doing said action is really in the best interest over another. Yes, blazer gives you rather nice knockback (damage completely dependent upon DI), but you cannot convert off it until much higher percents. So, you have to ask yourself. Do I blazer for juggling an opponent and covering options in the air, or do I use Fair/FlareBlade instead?

Another situation. You can uthrow fox/falco onto a platform, but will Uair really do anything? Not unless you connect with the strong hitbox and they are at higher percents. Other wise, fox/falco are back on there feet before you can hit them again with something guaranteed. Maybe it would have been better to jump onto the platform, use Fair or flareblade to hit them off.

 

[MookieRah]

Yes, blazer gives you rather nice knockback (damage completely dependent upon DI), but you cannot convert off it until much higher percents.

I'm not sure if you understand why I think blazer is good if you are saying this. For one, I'm talking about using blazer in a way that would use it's static knockback hitboxes. These don't change on percent, so it's not dependent on percentage. Second, I claim that blazer is good as a means to escape pressure and land safely on a platform (in a similar way as Mewtwo's teleport OoS) except that if it lands it puts your opponent at a positional disadvantage. I don't think blazer, in and of itself, will convert into anything, but it might place your opponent in a situation where they have to eat some percent to reset to neutral.

Do I blazer for juggling an opponent and covering options in the air, or do I use Fair/FlareBlade instead?

Using fair or a flare blade aren't particularly good. The startup and down time for flare blade is long enough to be punished heavily and can easily be baited. Fair just isn't that great in that it suffers from all the cons of Marth's fair yet does less damage, stun, and has less effective range. Neither of these options would make your opponent feel like they have lost the option of going to the air, even if you land an anti-air or two. On the other hand, blazer seems to be a perfect anti-air as it comes out really fast (from out of shield it's 10 frames, and then Roy receives some invincibility) and the knockback is enough to allow for Roy to land. If it is simply baited and Roy uses it so that he lands on a platform, he is placed in a slightly negative position, but not a terrible one, so I'd say it's a safe option if used wisely.

It doesn't do much damage, and will likely not put your opponent into that bad of a negative position, but it would help establish a feeling of being forced to engage Roy only on the ground.

Another situation. You can uthrow fox/falco onto a platform, but will Uair really do anything? Not unless you connect with the strong hitbox and they are at higher percents.

I agree with you here, I just didn't address these issues earlier. I would still like to confirm/find exact percentages as to when uair juggling becomes a legit option on all of the matchups that are worth exploring more. Since Roy's edgeguarding and combos are overall weaker, it would behoove Roy to juggle as it would increase the chances of Roy's attacks to either outright KO or send the opponent off stage and from below where his options are much stronger.

Overall, the reason why I thought it a good idea to re-evaluate the moveset is because people still find out stuff about the top tiers every so often. They are very nuanced things, but on occasion they make a significant impact. As you stated, the move never changed, just how we have used it has. I think taking a look at Roy is a good idea, because few have recently. I also think that we have move past the point where we evaluate a move based purely on combo-ability, damage, and etc. Now, identifying if a move is very useful for adjusting your position and/or your opponents is considered quite valuable in competitive play. I don't think many people would argue that being able to consistently flip positional advantage with Roy would alter how Roy is played, and while he still has less options than Marth, at least he has another, unique option (assuming this works, I still haven't had a chance to test on humans).

 

[Double Helix]

I agree completely. Sometimes there is a break-through. While I find it unlikely, we have had people (Mango and Armada as examples) completely change the way a character is viewed. After Mango you saw many more Puff mains and after Armada you see many more Peach mains. I mean, while Roy is a bad character, a great player that pilots him may have just, for lack of a better way to put it, figured it out.

I think something else to look into for Roy (even though I am not sure how well this will go) is any sort of move that hit confirms a combo (which seems to mean D-tilt -> grab or L-cancel -> D-tilt -> grab). The problem is my noob is showing a little here because the only hit confirm I know of is a jab reset and even that can be stopped.

I would like to bring up that this may fall into a play-style argument. What I mean is, there should only be one play-style, because there is one optimal move at any given time. Therefore, one optimal play-style. The problem with that argument is that it takes people out of the equation. People think differently, so play-styles will happen. Because people think differently, especially with a character like Roy, someone will utilize a move that has good utility for how they would play, whereas another player (let's assume of highest level skill) will scarcely to never use that move. Mango and Dr. PP are great examples here. Mango rarely uses U-tilt, but PP uses that move a lot.

But back to Roy. A question I have as a non-Roy player (at all) is, how can he utilize weak hits of moves? If the CC game is so good against him, I can't imagine that weak hits are even a little useful. But I feel like his weak hits should do something. Even if it leads into another bad move that sweet-spots, wouldn't that be helpful? I really don't know Roy at all, so I am giving a couple of pennies on here. Seeing more Roy would be awesome. After all, he is our boy!

 

[MookieRah]

I think something else to look into for Roy (even though I am not sure how well this will go) is any sort of move that hit confirms a combo (which seems to mean D-tilt -> grab or L-cancel -> D-tilt -> grab).

There aren't consistent hit confirms in smash due to the fact that percentages and DI affect the game so much; however, most bread and butter combos and the like are usually guaranteed, assuming that you didn't mess it up. It wouldn't be a bad idea try and find the most optimal bread and butters though and post it in an organized way. I'm terrible at testing things though, I don't know how those super technical guys do it. I might try to ask a few people that seems really good at that and see if they are willing to help the cause.

But back to Roy. A question I have as a non-Roy player (at all) is, how can he utilize weak hits of moves?

Good question, but I imagine they just wouldn't really be that effective overall regardless of using them optimally. One of Roy's biggest problems seems to be that most of his moves, not just the weak hits, are CCed for quite a while. Another problem being lack of stun on his hits. Tip hits suffer more from this, sadly. My guess for using tipped hits would be more towards higher percents, in which their low knock back might still set up for a KO. This isn't very ideal, as you would strive to KO your opponent much earlier though.

Outside of trying to take a step back and rethink Roy's moveset to possibly find some new Roy technology, we should focus on better decision making, and discuss playing Roy optimally. If we get organized and try to work through Roy's strategies for his good matchups at various different positions, I think we could create a very effective "How to play a pocket Roy" guide that will up Roy's game.

 

[odinNJ]

Wow its been a while, been getting back into smash and thus roy, and I was looking at some of my old practice footage and realized the ridiculous combos at high percents you can to with tips.

 

[VeriC]

Just here to share a bit on some of the stuff I've been testing with SHFFLing Roy's aerials lower.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10152857333970578&l=3086615453310958438
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10152857239235578&l=8792334580451651545
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10152857234975578&l=3935628033206880599
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10152856599720578&l=3552836198751123645

Seems to me that if we were to delay our aerial during our SHFFL from when we are rising from our jump to the time when we are about to fastfall/already fastfalling, we would have already landed and started making our next move, rather than wait for Roy to fall back down and waste the little hitstun our aerials already do.

None of this has been tested in an actual match, but from testing on CPU's I've found:

• Fair > Fsmash:
  Seems to link quite well together and comes out quite fast. Works best on floaties at low-mid percents and at higher percents or if they DI away, Fair > WD > Fsmash may work (untested).
  
• Fair > Dsmash:
  Faster than Fair > Fsmash, but less range. Works at a lower range of percents than Fair > Fsmash and more effective on fastfallers when they are at mid percents than low percents (Fox lands before ending lag of Dsmash finishes at low percents).
  
• Uair > Fsmash:
  Just like Fair >Fsmash, but higher chance of landing due to lower ending lag and upwards trajectory. Pretty much guaranteed on spacies if sweetspotted and at mid percents.
  
• Uair > Dsmash:
  Pretty much follows the same pattern as the above; Faster but less range on Uair than Fair. Unsweetspotted Uair > Dsmash might work better than sweetspotted Uair >Dsmash in some cases.
  
• Fair > Grab:
  Comes out FAST when you dash and JC grab (but still standing at the same spot). Works best at lower percents.
  
• Uair > Grab:
  Comes out EVEN FASTER (both sweetspotted and unsweetspotted). Can combo back into itself on fastfallers when up thrown
  
• Fair > DED:
  Comes out fast and links very well together.
  
• Uair > DED:
  Comes out fast as well, but in my opinion not as well as Fair due to lower horizontal range and could possibly Smash DI out of it before DED.
  
• Fair > Dtilt:
  Works EXTREMELY well together and follows up into the usual.
  
• Uair > Dtilt:
  Also works very well.
  
• Uair > Utilt:
  Great for knocking into the air into Uair SHFFL's

I'm not sure if this info's already well known, telling from some of the stuff VMan's been pulling with his Roy in his vids.

 

[Elyssa Xey Hexen]

@Rook Post#22:
I have no idea what you mean by this Anti-Air for those first two quote blocks. As I see it, it sounds like you want to try stopping SH or FH approaches. All of which are easily avoided by having good footwork with Roy which I think is preferred over trying to challenge other characters since of the stuff you already mentioned. Not enough stun to challenge moves directly with his own, so you have to space and abuse Dtilt/Grab to get stuff going (which are moved into position through roys great movement). Afterwards you can use a variety of his moves to keep your advantage. Everything else is just too bad to try using.

For that 3rd quote block, Crouch canceling is equally avoided by grab and can be baited into with movement to avoid people trying to spot dodge.

@Helix:
Great, we agree there is likely a go to strat. for playing roy. You just see it approached from different sides. I disagree about knowing an X combo list. Again, I think the preferred route is to simply stay in control the whole time after you land a hit. Think about the next thing that will lead you closer to getting them offstage from one single opportunity to punish them. Combo is great for maintaining that, but sometimes its bad. For example, you Dtilt Fox and he DIs closer to the center of the stage, you Fsmash him towards the center of the stage. It combos alright, but its bad. You completely lost your advantage you had on fox. Now you have to go and work for another opportunity to touch the fox player. Instead, you could have regrabbed. From here, you could lead into a tech chase (say they DI tech behind you or roll and you can now Fsmash them offstage) or Uthrow and follow DI with other moves until the character is finally offstage.

As for the weakened hits they typically too weak to be of use. But, there are some instances. Another example is against Fox/Falco (again lol). If you hit them with the strong part of Uair at say 100%, they will fly upwards a little ways. If you hit with the tip of Uair, they will not go upwards at all. Instead, they will simply fall to the ground a bit in stun. So, instead of using strong part of Uair to send them out of reach for roy to use another move right away, you can use the tip to have them simply fall into roy. Its not much stun time though, so you need roy to L-cancel very low to the ground or land on a platform to properly combo off it.

Similar thing with edgeguarding. You can tipper say a Fair or Bair to abuse their own fast falling speed and have them fall lower below the stage.

@Rook: The simplest way to test out stuff would be to get dolphin (emulator for GC), a rom of melee, then use an AR code to get the debug mode. With save states, you can quickly test the same scenario time after time. However, that's just for the theory. In practice, you just get a feel for how long a person is in stun or when you can act upon it or not.

 

[MookieRah]

@Eryx
I've been called Mook, Mooks, Mookie, Rah, and probably more that I can think of but never Rook. I had to check the number you posted to make sure you were referring to me : P.

On blazer as an anti-air versus traditional options:
Roy's current anti-air option from SH or FH seems to be either using a forward B if you can catch them out of the sky, or moving back and trying for a tilt or a grab. He very rarely has the ability to challenge any aerial attack in the air, and his options as are on the ground seem to rely on whether or not his opponent spaced poorly (forward B) or if he has space to move. Moving away from an attack gives up stage control, and is only a good thing if Roy can actually punish the attack in the first place. Blazer is an option that could work in a few select situations, because if Roy has the time for Blazer to come out then it will beat any aerial attack. I say this because after it's startup he gains invincibility frames, and on top of that the stun is actually good enough for him to escape and better his position. But that really isn't what is good about blazer as an anti-air.

Blazer, after it's startup frames, is super fast. If your opponent is jumping anywhere in the angle of Roy's blazer (which is a lot of area in front, and behind Roy) you can safely bet that you will catch them with a hit, tack on a bit of percent (very little but it's something) and put most characters into bad positions. I'm unsure on the spacies and Falcon in some cases as they fall so fast that they *might* be able to retaliate, but I think the stun is significant enough to prevent punishment actually. So if an opponent is trying to bait with aerials, like Marth performing nairs as a threatening way to gain a bit of stage control, blast him with a blazer. If he does a retreating fair, blast him with a blazer. Granted, locking Marth to the stage isn't a good idea, but against other characters this is quite nifty.

For that 3rd quote block, Crouch canceling is equally avoided by grab and can be baited into with movement to avoid people trying to spot dodge.

Yeah, I assume this is all we have to work with, but I was just wondering if anything has been discovered as a way to deal with it since my usage of Roy way back in the day. I really don't like the idea of having to have area to move in order to do anything effective though, but hopefully there is a way around that to a degree. If I'm right about blazer then that may be one ticket out of that situation.

 

[Double Helix]

I don't know how good Husband and Wife were in singles, but I did find some friendlies of them vs. a Roy player (Neo). I will just post them and see if it helps at all.

Neo vs. Husband
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Dq244s9hYs

Neo vs. Wife
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZxUuocv5gQ

Neo vs. Ken
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUn0pp3NitI

It looks like a lot of movement and spacing. He Ftilts more than he probably should, but he played Roy more than I ever have.

Edit: After playing Roy some, I found out that Ftilt is really good. and chain-grabs on spacies is good.

 

[Elyssa Xey Hexen]

-Blazer stuff-

Just want to point out roy is invincible on only a single frame and not many. (Same frame the hitbox first comes out). Well, I am still not for blazer really. It seems doable on certain things, but there are less risky options imo. I forgot to mention that roy has a pretty strong CC himself, so if you see approaches with aerials than CC or moving out of the way are still probably his best options.

Yeah, I assume this is all we have to work with, but I was just wondering if anything has been discovered as a way to deal with it since my usage of Roy way back in the day. I really don't like the idea of having to have area to move in order to do anything effective though, but hopefully there is a way around that to a degree. If I'm right about blazer then that may be one ticket out of that situation.

I disagree with blazer to try getting around crouch canceling. Blazer seems okay to use in situations where the opponent clearly cannot do anything such as from a SH aerial. They committed to the attack and they can do nothing to change their course. You time and space Blazer right, it should work. And there should be no risk for using blazer. If it doesn't work, your fault. If you want to try using it on CC, its the otherway around. CC is commitment free in a way. Going for a CC is waiting for something to happen while still retaining all options for retreat. If you are trying to get around CC problems with blazer, then your timing and spacing doesn't mean anything. Your opponents does. If your opponent shields the moment before you get off blazer, you should be getting punished for it and Roy doesn't want that. At least with grab, the cool down is much lower and is only beaten by dodges (and not always depending upon the character) since rolls simply get both of you off scott free.

I suppose an idea would be to look at certain moves that are reliable to knock over. Roy's Dtilt will knock fox over starting at 50% on the non-tipper part. Otherwise, it was still getting CC'd to 140%+ on tipper lol

I don't know how good Husband and Wife were in singles, but I did find some friendlies of them vs. a Roy player (Neo). I will just post them and see if it helps at all.

Neo vs. Husband
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Dq244s9hYs
Neo vs. Wife
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZxUuocv5gQ
Neo vs. Ken
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUn0pp3NitI

Edit: After playing Roy some, I found out that Ftilt is really good. and chain-grabs on spacies is good.

Does remind me that SideB >^ has hardly any variation on knockback or angle. With Marth, SideB1, it has 4 hitboxes which each provide a slightly different knockback, but worst of all each one has a different knockback angle. So one will sent the opponent up while others will go behind or in front of marth. Add in opponents DI and this is a nightmare to follow-up with on another SideB hit.

Roy on the other hand, the SideB >^ have no variation on the angle at all which make them very reliable to ensure it acts the same way every time (only thing is tipper again).

I guess general tree is >^^ for higher percents. >^> for most things. >^v for if you hit a shield.

I still do not get how Roy should grab -> death the spacies. He can get a guaranteed 0% to like at least 40% on them from simply Uthrow. But, if they land on a platform he cannot do much to make sure he can convert off them landing on the platform. There is Uair not really working either. It just doesn't send them high enough even on a strong hit to land on the ground fast enough to get into another move before they hit the ground. It's like this for the entire 40%-80% range.

 

[MookieRah]

I forgot to mention that roy has a pretty strong CC himself

I didn't realize that. I have a tendency not to CC due to playing characters that don't have a good CC game, and back when I played Roy I wasn't good enough to really think about his CC. Nifty info.

I disagree with blazer to try getting around crouch canceling.

I didn't word that so well, as I wasn't advocating throwing out random blazers when someone is CC'ing. I was just saying that if you tossed out a blazer and someone was able to CC, CC wouldn't prevent the blazer knockback. Granted, if a character ducks it's possible for blazer to miss them entirely or only hit with this one hit that doesn't have much stun or knockback that I've noticed lately.

I suppose an idea would be to look at certain moves that are reliable to knock over.

Yeah, this is a good thing to look into. Not only that, but if we had a list of when all of Roy's good options knock over and/or break CC it would help a lot. Very character specific stuff, but to be able to use Roy effectively one would really need to know when he can approach safely with more options.

 

[Double Helix]

I have found that while Roy is awful, and because I am bad as him finding new stuff is hard for me, his edgeguarding is pretty decent. Both his Fsmash and neutral B are good (I don't know hitbox data so I don't know which is better) and his tipper has little knockback so it can sometimes act like a jab on fast-fallers. How is his off-stage game?

 

[Elyssa Xey Hexen]

Dreadful.
-Drops like a rock.
-Little knockback on anything except flareblade (not the greatest anyway).
That about sums it up.

 

[Deleted member]

roy's main advantage over marth is that he can use his aerials to interrupt the opponent because his fall speed makes him faster up close. normally marth's sword swings are too slow in the neutral game (aside from iasa dtilt) and are easily exploited by better players. roy is different because his shuffles are much faster and can be used to hit the opponent out of their attacks.

you want to start playing roy under the premise that everything you're going to do is aggressive movement camping into grab, side b, and dtilt, probably in that order. side b is to hit opponents out of the air, dtilt is to hit grounded opponents that can't crouchgrab you back, and grab covers both aerial and grounded interaction. under no situation are you ever to engage in aerial to ground interaction as roy. ever. don't do it.

from the conversion, your goal is to simply move to an aggressive state in which your non-combo consecutive hits layer damage on the opponent. a basic example of this for example is that ganondorf jumps at you with a fair, and before the hitbox comes out you hit him with the first hit of side B (ground to air interrupt) and dtilt/upthrow him. from your conversion, you have a launcher and can use it to harass the opponent with shuffle upair/fairs/whatever until you can get something out of it. you'll repeat this process many times.

the antithesis of roy's play is crouch canceling. this is solved primarily by removing greedy play from your neutral game. roy the character does not have this; you MUST have better fundamentals than your opponent to beat any of the worthwhile characters.

i'll stop here to see how the conversation develops further. this is the basic flow chart for the character. i can add more, but i'll hold for now.

 

[Double Helix]

I literally played Roy for the first time since this game came out a week ago. Even before I heard of this community, I never liked playing him. But I really would like to see more low-tiers being played. So I am going to ask a laughable question. But, how in the world do I kill people? Ftilt and Fsmash/Neutral B punishes high recovery, but I don't know what to do if they go for the edge. Do I just go for hard reads until I edgehog them or send them to a blastzone?

Otherwise, from what Umbreon said, I can completely see that NOTHING seems to send them flying. He CAN gimp at about 30% if they recover badly.

 

[Elyssa Xey Hexen]

roy's main advantage over marth is that he can use his aerials to interrupt the opponent because his fall speed makes him faster up close. normally marth's sword swings are too slow in the neutral game (aside from iasa dtilt) and are easily exploited by better players. roy is different because his shuffles are much faster and can be used to hit the opponent out of their attacks.

you want to start playing roy under the premise that everything you're going to do is aggressive movement camping into grab, side b, and dtilt, probably in that order. side b is to hit opponents out of the air, dtilt is to hit grounded opponents that can't crouchgrab you back, and grab covers both aerial and grounded interaction. under no situation are you ever to engage in aerial to ground interaction as roy. ever. don't do it.

from the conversion, your goal is to simply move to an aggressive state in which your non-combo consecutive hits layer damage on the opponent. a basic example of this for example is that ganondorf jumps at you with a fair, and before the hitbox comes out you hit him with the first hit of side B (ground to air interrupt) and dtilt/upthrow him. from your conversion, you have a launcher and can use it to harass the opponent with shuffle upair/fairs/whatever until you can get something out of it. you'll repeat this process many times.

the antithesis of roy's play is crouch canceling. this is solved primarily by removing greedy play from your neutral game. roy the character does not have this; you MUST have better fundamentals than your opponent to beat any of the worthwhile characters.

i'll stop here to see how the conversation develops further. this is the basic flow chart for the character. i can add more, but i'll hold for now.

lol You keeping adding "from your conversation".

Disagree with the shuffles being any advantage. The ability to shffl faster doesn't mean much when you cannot pressure with it at all or follow-up well. Falco/Fox it helps well because they get shine into more aerials and there is enough stun on the aerials to land, chase, and follow-up before the opponent can do anything. Marth gets enough stun as well to typically land, then chase and follow-up. Or at the very least, chase and juggle because of the disjoint. I am not really seeing any advantage out of faster shuffles with the choice of aerials roy has.

2nd Para makes more sense and I agree with it.

3rd Para. I think the problem is after the launcher and what to do with it. Dtilt, Grab, SideB with movement is all you need for a neutral game, but roy can't shuffle effectively. Here is a good idea. To be generous, Falco sitting at 70%, Roys gets off a strong Uair. It doesn't knock falco over at all and he has enough time after landing on the platform to shield before Roy is even out of landing lag. Similar situations with pretty much all characters where they can get into a situation to avoid roy's harassment as you put it. Fox/falco could run off the platform before roy can do much. It is better against floaties though.

Isn't crouch canceling the antithesis to nearly every character? It just affects roy for far longer.

I literally played Roy for the first time since this game came out a week ago. Even before I heard of this community, I never liked playing him. But I really would like to see more low-tiers being played. So I am going to ask a laughable question. But, how in the world do I kill people? Ftilt and Fsmash/Neutral B punishes high recovery, but I don't know what to do if they go for the edge. Do I just go for hard reads until I edgehog them or send them to a blastzone?

Otherwise, from what Umbreon said, I can completely see that NOTHING seems to send them flying. He CAN gimp at about 30% if they recover badly.

Just keep denying them their recovery until they die offstage. That's about it.

Judge their trajectory and cover said trajectories. If Falcon is without a 2nd jump, realize that at any point he can UpB to try to go high above the stage. Youshould be prepared to deal with that option first and the maximum range it has. If he drops down further his effective deep stage recovery is lagging. Say after the peak height of UpB, Falcon can control his side momentum now. If you realize that he can go either onstage or the ledge its probably best to grab the ledge from him first. The UpB lag is so great that you can wavedash on stage into something like Dsmash (if at higher enough percent), Fsmash him offstage, flare blade, Ftilt, Bair, etc.

Every recovery will be a bit different so you just have to change it up according to what the character can do.

 

[Deleted member]

lol You keeping adding "from your conversation".

Disagree with the shuffles being any advantage. The ability to shffl faster doesn't mean much when you cannot pressure with it at all or follow-up well. Falco/Fox it helps well because they get shine into more aerials and there is enough stun on the aerials to land, chase, and follow-up before the opponent can do anything. Marth gets enough stun as well to typically land, then chase and follow-up. Or at the very least, chase and juggle because of the disjoint. I am not really seeing any advantage out of faster shuffles with the choice of aerials roy has.

2nd Para makes more sense and I agree with it.

3rd Para. I think the problem is after the launcher and what to do with it. Dtilt, Grab, SideB with movement is all you need for a neutral game, but roy can't shuffle effectively. Here is a good idea. To be generous, Falco sitting at 70%, Roys gets off a strong Uair. It doesn't knock falco over at all and he has enough time after landing on the platform to shield before Roy is even out of landing lag. Similar situations with pretty much all characters where they can get into a situation to avoid roy's harassment as you put it. Fox/falco could run off the platform before roy can do much. It is better against floaties though.

Isn't crouch canceling the antithesis to nearly every character? It just affects roy for far longer.

You don't know what you're talking about.

Most characters deal with crouching just fine.

 

[MookieRah]

roy's main advantage over marth is that he can use his aerials to interrupt the opponent because his fall speed makes him faster up close. normally marth's sword swings are too slow in the neutral game (aside from iasa dtilt) and are easily exploited by better players. roy is different because his shuffles are much faster and can be used to hit the opponent out of their attacks.

I think I do this in anyways, but haven't thought of it as an advantage. Basically use Roy's quick shffles to intercept slow moves if you know you can get away with it. Kinda like intercepting aerial attacks with Mewtwo's nair.

The rest of your post has sorta been covered/agreed by this thread, but not nearly as elegantly worded. In general it seems that Roy has to play fast and patient in order to have success.

On another note, what do you think of using blazer in some of the ways I described Mow?

Otherwise, from what Umbreon said, I can completely see that NOTHING seems to send them flying.

Forward smash and flare blade for horizontal, downsmash and uthrow for vertical. Roy has decent setups on many chars into a fsmash that can send them off stage, and one can punish platform techs/tech rolls with flare blade decently. Roy can punish things well with down smash really well cause it comes out quickly, and up throw can actually kill at high percents well.

 

[Deleted member]

charge b was covered pretty well so far, but i think the most important line so far is "I wasn't advocating throwing out random blazers". You really only want to be using it where you have a very high chance of it hitting. i rarely use it outside of edge guards, but it is excellent for that.

 

[ChivalRuse]

Just want to point out that up-b can't be crouch cancelled. If you do an empty short hop and up-b you can frame trap people who spam cc. If they start waiting for the up-b, you can start empty short hopping into grab.

Obviously this isn't really that good, but I think it's ... something?