Giving Zelda better mobility in most areas would be nothing but a complete buff.
Being mobile is inherently good thing. It might not be the only thing a character needs but it never hurts.
Great, can you guys explain where it would benefit Zelda? I think I've done a decent job explaining in detail why it wouldn't matter much.
YL and TL are better than Robin because they're zoners who can effectively zone. This is why TL was better than Link in SSB4; he had the mobility to zone while Link was too easy to catch.
I never commented on which one was better or even brought the Links up in the first place. Zachmac brought them up when there was no real reason to.
Notice how Ven lost that set 1-3 and Pika was dancing around Zelda? That set is a perfect example of how important mobility is. Zelda would have better chasing with better mobility and she even wiffs a Uair on PS2 due to her poor mobility not being able to keep up with Pika's DI.
Zelda can't chase effectively even with mobility, I mentioned that in my post, please go back and read it. You're ignoring the other Up-airs Ven landed and the reason for whiffs, is that it is frame 14. You need to have a read in order to effectively use it. The issue wasn't Ven couldn't keep up with Pikachu, it's that it is very difficult to land inconsistent and precise KO moves on Pikachu. Ven had the lead multiple times, just couldn't close out the stock.
Zelda having small sweet spots doesn't mean better mobility wouldn't help her. Just because it doesn't fix all her problems doesn't mean it is bad.
How would it help her? I never once mentioned it would fix all her problems, that's something you guys keep bringing up. I said it isn't an issue in the first place.
No, Zelda did not live stupidly long in those games she died at 116 to Fsmash and in the 120s to Dsmash several times.
Did you just cherrypick a few times, while ignoring that he lived to 130+ in the Pikachu one and 180+ in the Wolf one? If a lightweight consistently outlasting heavys isn't stupidly long, I don't know what is.
Captain L worked around Nayru's several times. Like any counter you can bait and punish it. Zelda has some disadvantage tools but they're not perfect. Better mobility won't let you escape something that's true but neither will Nayru's.
He got stuffed plenty of times too. Even the commentators mentioned how good he was using it. I never said Nayru's would let you escape true combos, I said you need to stick to them due to the presence of Nayru. Go watch more of Ven's stuff and you will see.
And better mobility would have let Zelda evade Pika more easily, just like how hard ZSS is to catch.
How would it do that? ZSS has lots of very quick and powerful tools to discourage aggression towards her landing. Zelda does not. Pikachu has lots of tools to cover landings, including projectiles.
Better mobility does help landings because you can fake out opponents.
How so? You still have to land sometime and your either going to jump or air dodge. Zelda still doesn't have many good landing tools for this to matter.
It also helps neutral because, like Pika was doing you can weave in and out with pokes and not be in attack range as much.
Yes, when you have pokes. When you have disjointed aerials, that can be repeatedly fast falled and have no substantial endlag to them, you can "weave in and out with pokes". My entire thing here, is that Zelda does not have those things, thus she can't easily flit about even with more mobility. Like, how would you even begin to try to do the things characters like Wolf or ZSS do, when you don't have the frame data or hitboxs they do? I've yet to see anyone address this.
And to put it bluntly, your point is baffling.
Mobility is inherently a good thing. Look I try to be open-minded in these discussion but c'mon.
And I'd like specific counterpoints in relation to Zelda, that aren't just simply repeating over and over again that better mobility will be inherently better or useful for her. I've went into detail using top level play to illustrate why I feel this way.
Gee man, I can't imagine a high speed character using a move like that effectively in a high speed game.
I can't either. It's already pretty much witchcraft for even skilled Zelda players to land the move, I can't imagine adding more variables in play.
99% of the time when you're using lightning kick, it should be a punish tool, not a neutral tool. It's easier to hit a character stuck in endlag.
Which is my point precisely. If her Fair and Bair are out of the question for neutral, how the hell are people thinking she's going to be able to chase and dogfight with better mobility? It isn't as simple as point and shoot even as a punish. Most other tipper and sweet-spot characters have respectable sour-spots that won't get them killed. The punishment for their sweet-spot whiffs, is not getting as good of damage or early of kill, not giving your opponent a free hit most of the time.
Since words aren't getting through to people, how about a practical exercise?
Next time you boot up Ultimate, go into to training mode as Zelda and pick Greninja as your opponent. Set his damage to 70% and try to get D-Tilt -> sweet-spot Fair registered as a true combo. It's not impossible, but you might find you have a lot of difficulty doing so. Why? Because his tumble animation puts his spindly legs in front of him. That makes it much more difficult to land the sweet-spot. Now switch your opponent to Mario and set his damage to 70% and attempt the same thing. Notice how it's much easier to do, to the point you just have to dash into a short hop? Why? Because his giant head is placed right on the edge of the sweet-spot. You can attempt to full hop and still be successful, but it will be much harder because his smaller body is around there. In short, their tumble animation dictates the height and timing.
Keep an eye on how many times you whiff doing this. Now imagine eating Bairs and Fsmashes/Upsmashes doing this. I've labbed D-Tilt -> sweet-spot on multiple characters on multiple percents and you have to make various Y and X axis adjustments when you jump in order to hit various characters with the sweet-spot. That's just one confirm when they're in hitstun. Now try adding DI and various height and hurtbox shifts. Now imagine chasing your opponent in disadvantage, with all the things that come with it like air dodges or attacks that can shift the hurtbox. Sound difficult? Now try adding extra mobility on top of it.
There's a reason why Zelda plays passive most of the time and it's not to annoy you. When you start adding your own momentum into things, that makes the variables more complex. Pay close attention to how many times top Zelda mains whiff the sweet-spot in relation to landing it and in what context they're successful in. I'm going to bet you'll notice a trend in hitting approaching opponents and dropping down from platforms. It's much easier to land it from an immobile position than it is to try to chase or be aggressive with it.
Sometimes a little bit of drift could be the difference between your opponent catching your landing and them not.
It's certainly more useful if you have good retreating options but it's still useful regardless.
So long as you don't add projectiles, certain dash attacks, or moves with lots of range like Belmont Whips.
Bait and punish characters love having good mobility to bait or punish with. Am I right,
? Just like how zoners love to be able to run away or quickly punish opponents for trying to avoid or getting hit by their projectiles.
Sure as long as you have safe frame data like Sonic(kill moves). Zelda doesn't have safe or consistent kill moves, which was my point. It's not about catching the character, it's about landing the powerful part of the move.
And wouldn't it be even better to have even more opportunities to use those traits?
There's plenty of opportunities to use those traits. Whether you can land them safely is another story. More mobility also won't help against turtleling opponents in last hit last stock situations, when you have a double digit grab startup. That seems to be a trend for a lot of Zelda players, what to do when you're opponent has nothing to lose and insists that you be the one to approach. You can rack more damage in that situation, but good luck with do or die kill moves.
I'm just saying that poor mobility is a weakness
And I'm saying it depends. Zelda has good initial acceleration on her dash and jump. Those are good for dashing back and Fsmashing or jumping then dropping down to punish commits. As I've explained, Nair isn't good for dogfights, retreating aerials, or contesting attacks. It is however, good for anti-air and starting/continuing combos. Initial acceleration is important for those things, but run speed or aerial drift isn't. You can't use Nair with those aspects of mobility. You can repeat for her other moves. Running across the stage and Fsmashing isn't going to work. Baiting with a dash dance will. Having faster aerial mobility isn't going to change the fact that Up-air is frame 14. Having fast jumps can allow you to punish DJs with it on a read.
We've gotten off track and people are bringing other characters into the fray, but my initial point was that Zelda already has the mobility tools she needs to utilize her kit. Buffing other aspects of her mobility isn't going to change anything, because her actual moves can't take advantage of them. Zelda mains aren't going to change their style on a fundamental level with increased mobility, because the way they currently play is what's optimal for her kit. Not because they have to work around her current mobility, but her frame data and precision doesn't allow aggressive play or "chasing". A fellow Zelda main has tried since release and has finally come to the conclusion that it's simply not possible.
Just like how every character would want a better recovery, even if they don't like to chase opponents offstage. Or how every character would like to have a bit more weight, even if their gameplan doesn't revolve around tanking hits.
Yes, but those are pretty universal. Just like how you would be hard pressed to find a character that suffered from doing increased damage. A better example would be whether giving Snake a sword or Palutena a puppet character would beneficial or change their game play significantly. Like maybe in very specific cases, but it wouldn't be necessary and would just be different. A lot of characters would like that, but not all of them can utilize it. I mean would Ice Climbers benefit from faster run speed, when they have everything from Squall Hammer, to their projectiles? Or rather, would you even see any change in Ice Climbers game plan or them just running around the stage like Mac? Yeah, they can get into position quicker in certain situations, but how often is that necessary?
You're not helping your case by being so needlessly defensive of your character.
I think wasting as much effort as I have detailing her actual weakness, for lots of people who just seem to skim it, should disqualify me from being "needlessly defensive". If anything I'm trying to shine a light on what she actually suffers from,
in practice.
Anyway, I'm done with this conversation.
Well, if you're going to run off in a huff without explaining how this would benefit her, like I've been asking that's fine. I would also agree that if a lot of the people replying to my posts, aren't going to bother addressing what I said and asked or put in even a tenth of what I did in explaining my reasoning, in theirs, then yeah we pretty much are going in circles.
Looks to me that Stoic thinks that a mobility buff wouldn't necessarily buff Zelda as a whole. Maybe it will but I'm still in for a faster grab.
My point is that Zelda's frame data and hitboxs will hamper any mobility gains. And I have yet to see anyone give any real reasoning to the contrary. It seems to simply be assumed that faster mobility will always be better, regardless of the kit or whether it can **** up spacing sweet-spots.
Take the grab you just mentioned. Even if you give Zelda Mac ground speed, does that matter when your grab is double digits in startup and has lots of endlag, while your opponent only needs three frames to jump OoS? Like, take Phantom and Din's Fire out of the equation and give Zelda Mac ground speed and ZSS air speed. How would you go about pressuring shields? What moves of Zelda's are safe on shield? I'll answer for you: D-Tilt, Fsmash, Dsmash, Jab 1, sour-spot Dair, and fast fall sweet-spot Fair are all safe or mostly safe on shield. Of those, how many do enough shield damage to make the opponent go "Oh ****, I better move"? Fsmash and maybe D-Tilt and Fair. Of those, how many let you do a follow up anti-air or roll punish? Maybe D-Tilt?
It seems like people are separating the moves from the attributes, not acknowledging that they affect each other. ZSS can do what she does, because her aerials are all single digits and auto cancel(except Dair I think). Her grab may be ass, but she can bonk shields pretty easily with minimal to no risk. On the off chance someone decides to pop out of their shell, her incredibly quick combined with no knockback aerials, can combo and pressure very well. Zelda's are the polar opposite of that. Without the mobility, ZSS's aerials aren't as effective, without the frame data that mobility is pointless. Putting Zelda's startup and endlag and general risk on ZSS, would definitely drop her tiers and hamper what she wants to do. Thus, putting that kind of mobility on Zelda with her startup, endlag, general risk, and inability to pressure shields, would be pointless.
It would be wise to remember that Zelda has been straight bottom tier since her inception. That's because she was based entirely around defense and punishes, but had no ability to force approaches, pressure shields, and really make the opponent do anything but sit on the other side of the stage and laugh at her. She isn't fundamentally different now than she was then. The only difference is her down special was revamped to basically be the Swiss Army knife of what she lacked. Phantom is what ties the rest of her kit together and is integral to her play. It's a projectile that requires and cannot store charge however, so that will fundamentally prevent her from flitting around the stage ZSS style or "weaving in and out". By virtue of depending on Phantom, Zelda will not be able to play quick and agile, given Phantom requires a specific spacing and locks her in place during charge, with the relevant endlag.
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