Kiligar
Smash Journeyman
- Joined
- Mar 5, 2019
- Messages
- 269
So I missed a discussion on best swordies. In my opinion the order of best swordies goes like this:
>>>>>>>
As I’ve said before I believe Roy to be the worst swordie. I who thought months ago that he was a top tier sword character. It’s after using him extensively that I realized how overrated he is. Just because he’s fast and can kill early doesn’t mean he’s good otherwise would be good characters. Out of everyone in this list Roy has the worst hit boxes for spacing. Which kind of defeats the point of being a swordie as a character like Mario or Squirtle can button mash better than you. You still do have better hitboxes than them,but it’s not as significant, at low percent you are minus on hit with your tippers and at high percent they don’t kill. The people who talk about “but Roy tippers can set up into kills” don’t realize how niche this is. It’s not a consistent thing, the only tipper which can really do that at certain very high percent is sour up air. Aside from that the rest just knock em away. So sour spots are a bad thing for consistency, overall Chrom’s sword is just better, there is no matchup where you prefer Roy’s sword. If Chrom had Roy’s sword he’d be a significantly worse character, and despite having a worse recovery than Roy he’s better due to having no sourspots.
There are problems which Roy and Chrom share, but Roy’s sword exacerbates them. The neutral can be a little strange against a reactive shield happy opponent, as forward air takes quite some time to come out. With Chrom you can space with the tipper more effectively at lower percent and still lead up into things whereas it isn’t the case with Roy. The entire kit of Chroy is almost universally focused on anti airing, as in their rising aerials aren’t very safe on shield, whereas their grounded moves bar down tilt seem to be more effective against aerial opponents. Particularly this is the case with Roy who has a lot easier time landing sweet spot jab and up tilt on aerial opponents. However Roy’s ftilt is pretty difficult to sweet spot on aerial opponent, whereas Chrom’s is excellent at doing so and one of the best f tilts in the game in general. Basically what this all illustrates is that Chroy have a problem in that they depend on the opponent jumping for their neutral to work well, but this problem is many times worse for Roy.
Small characters exacerbate this issue since when they don’t jump none of Chroy’s rising aerials hit. Chrom has an easier time making up for this by spacing them out with falling aerials but Roy can’t effectively space. Which is part of the reason why Roy loses so hard to small characters.
Roy’s combos are average in terms of damage. Of course if you happen to line up that training room twitter combo of falling up air to back air to falling up air to forward air to up b it looks cool and deals plenty of damage, but most of the time your best strings come from that unsafe rising nair which leads into a couple fairs at low percent. The combo window isn’t huge either. Lucina who’s known for not having as good combo potential as Chroy can do similar things off of falling up air at low percent. The best Roy gets at mid percents is falling up air back air and up air, land up air with platform help. Chrom’s combo damage is better due to his up special being a massive damage combo finisher, as well as his combo windows being a bit larger due to his weaker aerials and no sour spots. Roy’s combo damage is by no means bad but it’s far from exceptional and isn’t consistent. Compare this to characters like Mario, Young Link, Peach who have amazing combo damage on top of better recoveries and neutrals. Yes, there are characters without outstanding combos such as Wolf, Cloud and Joker, but their superior neutrals (access to projectiles help) and mobility mean they can win neutral more often and keep leads better. Roy’s average combos, high fast fall speed, poor recovery, lack of projectiles and commital neutral means he ismore prone to being reversals than just about any character near his viability, and any other swordie bar Chrom. However at least Chrom is consistent when it comes tine
Due to Chroy’s low air accel once they choose a direction they have to commit. Wave bounce side special can help a bit but it’s still not the same as someone like Wolf or Mario who can weave in or out. This can make Chroy aerials pretty predictable. Marcina could have a similar problem as their air accel isn’t the best, but it’s still significantly better and alongside their slower fall speed and really fast forward air gives much more opportunity to mix up aerial timings. Basically Chroy have issues with being parried just like any other swordie, but Roy has it worst of all since he’s usually point blank when the parry occurs.
The recovery isn’t that great, better than Chrom’s in most cases (Chrom’s may actually be better against Greninja due to how soaring slash interacts with hydro pump) but still it’s not very good. No armor and a bad time clipping ledge, (not talking about the overshoot that newer players do but even when you do it right it’s easier to get two framed as Roy then say Lucina or Corrin). Not much to elaborate on here, this recovery is a part of his design but doesn’t make up for the worse sword.
The up special is very poor Oos against shirt characters in particular, if you search up the hitbox you’ll see it disappears on the second frame after it comes out on frame 9. Furthermore it has awful horizontal range. This allows small characters to crouch underneath it at times, as there won’t be any multi hit which can hit them at a later time unlike tall characters. This also means the move is easy to spot dodge for most characters, giving it no advantage over Chrom’s in that aspect. Given that Roy already struggles against small characters, being able to do essentially nothing Oos against them makes the matchups near impossible against a competent player. Whereas Chrom’s has a massive horizontal hitbox which means the opponent isn’t accidentally escaping.
Roy’s matchup chart is just too poor for him to be one of the best swordies. Every other swordie I listed has a better matchup chart. His neutral is worse than every other swordie,and in general it’s a bottom 20 neutral. His approach is pretty poor, just disguised by his speed. Whereas Chrom has a top 15 neutral which is how much difference their swords make. Roy’s advantage state is potentially the worst out of all the swordies on this list despite having decent combos, due to how his sour spots mess up his juggling. Players tend to forget how oppressive the juggling of these swordies can be with their massive disjointed up airs and Roy’s sour spot really screws that up. Maybe only Ike is worse in the advantage state due to his slow speed and frame data. His disadvantage state is down at the bottom of the list with Chrom, due to their high fast fall speed and awful recoveries. Marcina get juggled hard but their recoveries aremuch better.
Roy is still a decent character but his weaknesses are understated and his strengths are overstated. Every other swordie in this list does better in every matchup bar Corrin, Marth and Ike. Corrin and Ike struggle more than Roy against ZSS and Sonic but do better in every other matchup. Marth does marginally worse against much of the cast than Roy but does significantly better against every short character. Marth is close to Roy’s level but just barely is better. Which is why Roy is the worst sword characterz
>>>>>>>
As I’ve said before I believe Roy to be the worst swordie. I who thought months ago that he was a top tier sword character. It’s after using him extensively that I realized how overrated he is. Just because he’s fast and can kill early doesn’t mean he’s good otherwise would be good characters. Out of everyone in this list Roy has the worst hit boxes for spacing. Which kind of defeats the point of being a swordie as a character like Mario or Squirtle can button mash better than you. You still do have better hitboxes than them,but it’s not as significant, at low percent you are minus on hit with your tippers and at high percent they don’t kill. The people who talk about “but Roy tippers can set up into kills” don’t realize how niche this is. It’s not a consistent thing, the only tipper which can really do that at certain very high percent is sour up air. Aside from that the rest just knock em away. So sour spots are a bad thing for consistency, overall Chrom’s sword is just better, there is no matchup where you prefer Roy’s sword. If Chrom had Roy’s sword he’d be a significantly worse character, and despite having a worse recovery than Roy he’s better due to having no sourspots.
There are problems which Roy and Chrom share, but Roy’s sword exacerbates them. The neutral can be a little strange against a reactive shield happy opponent, as forward air takes quite some time to come out. With Chrom you can space with the tipper more effectively at lower percent and still lead up into things whereas it isn’t the case with Roy. The entire kit of Chroy is almost universally focused on anti airing, as in their rising aerials aren’t very safe on shield, whereas their grounded moves bar down tilt seem to be more effective against aerial opponents. Particularly this is the case with Roy who has a lot easier time landing sweet spot jab and up tilt on aerial opponents. However Roy’s ftilt is pretty difficult to sweet spot on aerial opponent, whereas Chrom’s is excellent at doing so and one of the best f tilts in the game in general. Basically what this all illustrates is that Chroy have a problem in that they depend on the opponent jumping for their neutral to work well, but this problem is many times worse for Roy.
Small characters exacerbate this issue since when they don’t jump none of Chroy’s rising aerials hit. Chrom has an easier time making up for this by spacing them out with falling aerials but Roy can’t effectively space. Which is part of the reason why Roy loses so hard to small characters.
Roy’s combos are average in terms of damage. Of course if you happen to line up that training room twitter combo of falling up air to back air to falling up air to forward air to up b it looks cool and deals plenty of damage, but most of the time your best strings come from that unsafe rising nair which leads into a couple fairs at low percent. The combo window isn’t huge either. Lucina who’s known for not having as good combo potential as Chroy can do similar things off of falling up air at low percent. The best Roy gets at mid percents is falling up air back air and up air, land up air with platform help. Chrom’s combo damage is better due to his up special being a massive damage combo finisher, as well as his combo windows being a bit larger due to his weaker aerials and no sour spots. Roy’s combo damage is by no means bad but it’s far from exceptional and isn’t consistent. Compare this to characters like Mario, Young Link, Peach who have amazing combo damage on top of better recoveries and neutrals. Yes, there are characters without outstanding combos such as Wolf, Cloud and Joker, but their superior neutrals (access to projectiles help) and mobility mean they can win neutral more often and keep leads better. Roy’s average combos, high fast fall speed, poor recovery, lack of projectiles and commital neutral means he ismore prone to being reversals than just about any character near his viability, and any other swordie bar Chrom. However at least Chrom is consistent when it comes tine
Due to Chroy’s low air accel once they choose a direction they have to commit. Wave bounce side special can help a bit but it’s still not the same as someone like Wolf or Mario who can weave in or out. This can make Chroy aerials pretty predictable. Marcina could have a similar problem as their air accel isn’t the best, but it’s still significantly better and alongside their slower fall speed and really fast forward air gives much more opportunity to mix up aerial timings. Basically Chroy have issues with being parried just like any other swordie, but Roy has it worst of all since he’s usually point blank when the parry occurs.
The recovery isn’t that great, better than Chrom’s in most cases (Chrom’s may actually be better against Greninja due to how soaring slash interacts with hydro pump) but still it’s not very good. No armor and a bad time clipping ledge, (not talking about the overshoot that newer players do but even when you do it right it’s easier to get two framed as Roy then say Lucina or Corrin). Not much to elaborate on here, this recovery is a part of his design but doesn’t make up for the worse sword.
The up special is very poor Oos against shirt characters in particular, if you search up the hitbox you’ll see it disappears on the second frame after it comes out on frame 9. Furthermore it has awful horizontal range. This allows small characters to crouch underneath it at times, as there won’t be any multi hit which can hit them at a later time unlike tall characters. This also means the move is easy to spot dodge for most characters, giving it no advantage over Chrom’s in that aspect. Given that Roy already struggles against small characters, being able to do essentially nothing Oos against them makes the matchups near impossible against a competent player. Whereas Chrom’s has a massive horizontal hitbox which means the opponent isn’t accidentally escaping.
Roy’s matchup chart is just too poor for him to be one of the best swordies. Every other swordie I listed has a better matchup chart. His neutral is worse than every other swordie,and in general it’s a bottom 20 neutral. His approach is pretty poor, just disguised by his speed. Whereas Chrom has a top 15 neutral which is how much difference their swords make. Roy’s advantage state is potentially the worst out of all the swordies on this list despite having decent combos, due to how his sour spots mess up his juggling. Players tend to forget how oppressive the juggling of these swordies can be with their massive disjointed up airs and Roy’s sour spot really screws that up. Maybe only Ike is worse in the advantage state due to his slow speed and frame data. His disadvantage state is down at the bottom of the list with Chrom, due to their high fast fall speed and awful recoveries. Marcina get juggled hard but their recoveries aremuch better.
Roy is still a decent character but his weaknesses are understated and his strengths are overstated. Every other swordie in this list does better in every matchup bar Corrin, Marth and Ike. Corrin and Ike struggle more than Roy against ZSS and Sonic but do better in every other matchup. Marth does marginally worse against much of the cast than Roy but does significantly better against every short character. Marth is close to Roy’s level but just barely is better. Which is why Roy is the worst sword characterz
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