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StoicPhantom
Yeah, that may be true but it seems that also Mystearica is playing with the thought of dropping her. At least when I check his Twitter although his Twitter is more often a bit enigma than something else. Don't get me wrong, I know he has results but it seems that more and more once dedicated Zelda players are playing with the thought of dropping her for another character and that's not really a development I'd like to see for her. Yes, there's Ven (and he's probably never dropping her after everything he's been through in Sm4sh with her) but only one player isn't that good even if he's able to compete with the big boys.
I don't want to speak for Mystearica, but I feel like Mystearica is more of a Bayo main than a Zelda one, similar to how I'm more of a Zelda main than a Robin one, despite dropping Zelda for Robin in 4. It tends to eat away at you, when you drop or pick up a character for viability reasons, because it doesn't just feel as good or "right". I doubt Mystearica will drop Zelda unless Bayo gets better, or at least won't be happy about it .
You are indeed correct about it not being good to put the entire Zelda base's expectations on one player. I don't feel like Zelda is a character that is attractive on a fundamental level however, so I don't believe we're going to get more representation. We'll just have to see what pops up in the coming months, we might possibly get someone new that's near the level of Ven and Mystearica.
His disjoint is terrible on all his bronze attacks,
It's not great, but it's not terrible either. They can still be respectable even if Levin is superior.
he lacks any fast grounded kill options
Not true, Jab and Dsmash are good, Fsmash got a good speed boost and is pretty good for its ridiculous power. Not that it really matters when you have really good aerials and projectiles that can kill.
his primary zoning tool, arcfire is slow, laggy, and gets beaten out by any hitbox and/or projectile including non-disjoints,
Arcfire is not nor has ever been Robin's "primary zoning tool". It's used in advantage, that's why you don't see good Robins using it in neutral often.
his charged thunders are slow and telegraphed
On what planet is Elthunder "slow and telegraphed"? They took an already quick and powerful tool and made it faster and more difficult to see. Arcthunder has also got a good speed boost and does a tremendous amount of shield damage. You can pretty easily cover platforms and catch landings or force air dodges with it, as opposed to only being able to use it like a shotgun in 4.
his aerials don't come out consistently with levin when using tilt stick,
This doesn't have anything to do with viability, especially considering you can use the A+B smash setting to activate it.
his incredibly slow ground and air speed make him unthreatening
His ground speed is irrelevant and he absolutely does not have slow air speed.
Nosferatu is still an utterly useless command grab on a character that really doesn't want it,
Uh, no it really isn't. Having a kit that naturally conditions shields, leading into a command grab that heals Robin can not be called useless. Landing from behind while there is a significant damage gap between the players, will heal Robin to an extent that you can potentially turn entire matches around.
his jab infinite is still inconsistent and locks him in it forever...
It is far, far better than its Smash 4 equivalent. It is actually useful to use now, instead of only being viable on Sheik and Fox in 4.
and on top of all that, the durability system also has a habit of nerfing Robin at random points in the match where he really needs to rely on what little tools he does have, including his most potent killing aerials, his only means of zoning, and even his recovery.
You don't want Robin to have unlimited uses with these powerful tools. I can only imagine the havoc an unlimited Levin sword would create, especially with the new Nair. The discards can still be useful, like setting up for Bair, among other item play.
Robin fails as both a projectile zoner and a disjoint spacer and I think without some major buffs he's going to fall further.
Robin is perfectly fine as their own category, not the things others keep trying to shoehorn them into.
Robin's pretty clearly a low tier at this point. A somewhat popular one, but that doesn't prevent him from being low tier. Almost every character in the game has had a top 8 showing of some significance, low tier is not as far from viable as it used to mean in Smash. But end of the day there has to be both low tier and bottom tier characters when looking at the full roster despite... almost every single character accept to be low/bottom tier arguing that they're "upper mid tier at worst, possibly high tier" (seriously, I've even seen that claimed for both Ice Climbers and Kirby. It gets silly).
Based on...? Yes there needs to be a low tier, but why Robin specifically? As I stated above, Robin got substantial buffs in the transition. They didn't get any nerfs that were severe enough to drop them entire tiers. Robin wasn't regarded highly in 4, but I'm puzzled as to why they are being it in low/bottom tier with the likes of Mac. I'm not seeing any strong rationale, just the usual misunderstandings of how they play, that plagued them in 4.
Robin is quite clearly in low tier. He can wrack up the damage in the right situations for sure, and he can ledge trap well, but he still has the issues of having some awkward moves, projectiles that aren't quite good enough in a variety of situations, and sub-par mobility.
That fits certain high tiers like Rob almost to a tee, yet I don't see anyone disputing their status. And what does "projectiles that aren't quite good enough in a variety of situations" that I keep seeing mean? Most characters don't have projectiles that cover a lot of situations. My character has a projectile that is widely considered good, and I admit it still lacks the versatility of Robin's and can be too general. Yes Robin's projectiles won't cook and clean for you, but being able to do everything from space and harass, to gimp and kill is pretty good in my book. Combine that with the ridiculousness of the Levin Sword, and you have a kit that can setup each other, rack some pretty ridiculous damage, and kill from just about anywhere. The whole point of Robin, is that they're a strategist and the sky's the limit, and Ultimate Robin actually achieved that.
It feels to me like Robin's tools are being severely underestimated. Levin is better than the average sword, the speed of Elthunder and Arcthunder make for easy edgeguards and invalidate high recoveries. Arcfire is a good combo tool, and is what is responsible for those 80%+ combos you see Robin get sometimes.
I just don't see how someone with such good tools could be considered low tier. The cool down on spent Tomes/Swords isn't that significant, Levin having a timer at the start isn't good, but isn't the end of the world either. Mobility isn't an issue so long as you properly manage your resources. That's why I'm asking, I don't understand the rationale.
I don't think Zelda is that good, I could be wrong but she seems underwhelming. She's better than in 4 though. Maybe some of my prior-Smash game bias is affecting my view on her, she's clearly the best Zelda ever, but she's still fundamentally Zelda, isn't she?
She got a special completely redesigned to the point that people have been complaining about it since day 1. A lot of her moves have also received startup buffs that actually put them on the map, instead being very situational like before. Lightning Kicks for instance have a startup as fast as some Jabs, while having power on par with Ganon Fsmash. Significantly enough that it could bump her up several tiers.
And IIRC, Zelda has placed top 64, sometimes top 32, in every super major after Genesis, by multiple players. I think that warrants her being better than the characters you mentioned for now.
I've seen Robin players being optimistic and thinking that she's borderline high tier, I'm not convinced yet but I don't think she's terrible. Possibly still bottom 25 though, perhaps a little higher.
Robin's one of those characters you have to main, in order to really understand. I mained Robin in 4, so I know how they feel.
I don't know enough about the other characters to really say whether I feel you're right or wrong, I was just going purely on results. Thanks for elaborating.
most importantly her fSmash (it's sickening when the opponent falls out and land behind Zelda).
Been thinking it might be better to use F-Tilt in those situations. It isn't that much weaker and is a single hit. Will of course be more difficult to angle, but will be better than small characters constantly falling out of Fsmash.
has slowly made a better impression on the community thanks to Prince Ramen's efforts,
