ParanoidDrone
Smash Master
Solo Rosalina's frame data is...not awful, but not spectacular either. Her fastest move is dtilt at frame 5, which is workable but not really fast enough to win a poking war IMO. It does have great range going for it, but you basically have to outrange the opponent or call them out on something laggy.I think people underestimate how good Rosaloner is. Rosaloner is still a good character because she still has good hitboxes and frame data. The opponent will always want to approach to capitalise on the lack of luma, which alleviates a lot of her mobility problems. If she were just a solo character, then she'd be a fair bit worse because there wouldn't be as much of a burden to approach her. But in the context of the opponent having/wanting to approach she's still better than quite a lot of characters.
As for swapping properties, doing so would make her more like a traditional camper. Projectile campers tend to be able to rack up damage safely from range, but are normally reliant on shorter range options for killing (think toon link with usmash and fair). Every character with that model is a lot more balanced than Rosa is.
I didn't mean to imply Rosalina is braindead, but she is surprisingly simple to grasp on a basic level compared to literally every puppet fighter I've ever tried ever, including the Ice Climbers if they count. (Possible exception: Elizabeth in Persona 4 Arena if you consider her ability to combo you from fullscreen with Thanatos. Shadow Labrys and Ken/Koromaru are the more traditional puppet archetypes though; everyone else just has their persona come and go as they attack and Elizabeth happens to be capable of keeping hers out for quite a while.)I really feel like I'm in a twilight zone where Rosalina is an easy, overtuned character. Rosalina is good sure, but man, this character is not forgiving to play at all. Rosalina basically completely depends on exerting control over the match to win. While she's doing this successfully she's really oppressive and generally super good. Hitting with both characters does tons of damage and knockback with incredible range and average speed on pretty much everything so it's a beautiful thing. When this is NOT going well, it's really easy to just get blown up. Basic defensive options with other characters are the "watch Luma get hit" options with Rosalina, and when you are not winning the spatial control battle or when Luma is out of position (or worse dead!) basically every button she has is too slow and too unsafe to force your opponent back to the defense which means you have to be making solid reads just to avoid being mauled. If Rosalina is already losing and needs to go in to make a comeback, she's really bad at it since her stuff is only safe if she is playing the slower and more careful spatial control game, and her movement specs really aren't very good for moving in anyway. Winning with Rosalina requires being able to seize and maintain momentum for extended periods of time mostly through really sound spatial control, and even then, you'll realistically still lose Luma several times per game which results in your opponent having incredible momentum against you that very much can and will continue after Luma respawns unless you do something smart to buy a little time and re-exert control. If you make mistakes with Rosalina (even small ones), it's really easy to end up in a terrible position in a hurry, and once you're in a terrible position with her, it's really hard to claw your way back out of it. There's a lot to be said about this style of character and there's no doubt she can be very effective, but what I can't see is how it's anything but really difficult to play. I believe the general tournament results with her that show "she can do some big winning, but mostly just by people who have put a lot of time into her" are pretty accurate at reflecting this.
You make an excellent point about standard defensive options (shield, spotdodge, roll, etc.) coming with a high price tag for her since Luma will still get hit. The best way for her to defend herself is to simply not be there but tall + average-ish mobility in everything except air speed doesn't really help.
Without Luma, I've had moderate success with going for grabs every chance I get and forcing them to dodge followups that I know aren't guaranteed but still succeed in making them either eat a hit or get out of the way. Doing that a few times eats up a good chunk of Luma's respawn timer. I suspect this won't be as effective against people above the local level, but for now it's not failing outright.
EDIT: Regarding Ryu's inputs, my main issue is that since Motion + A produces specials, I tend to accidentally Hadouken/Tatsu when I meant to do a smash after crouching or fair/bair after fast falling or similar circumstances.
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