I wouldn't necessarily call what I'm about to say weaknesses, but I suppose they are under certain circumstances.
After picking up Corrin and playing around for a long while, in training, against CPUs, and against one of my friends, Corrin is definitely an odd swordsman.
Through testing, the first of his jabs, which sends out a dragon arm, does indeed tipper. But it also knocks the opponent inwards. Which is not particularly good when you're trying to space as a swordsman.
His recovery can be pretty good, but only on stages that reach downwards. Any floating stage like Final Destination? You basically have Up-B to recover and B-air and N-B (releasing the shot immediately and holding B again to charge the bite) to stall somewhat and mess with anybody trying to chase off stage. On stages with walls going down though, a Side-B into a jump into Up-B works pretty much until around you're out of screen.
Having played as a Lucina main on launch, the movement speed is fine if you can work around it.
The problems with shield I couldn't find much help with. The only thing that seems to be an option is to try and space yourself from shield with rolls and hope you aren't punished, or try for an Up-B from shield if they're close enough. Anything else takes too long to come out when shield ends for it to be really effective without getting lucky in my experience so far.
From my play time, B-air is pretty good at killing, but if you're facing away from them, they may predict it. N-air and F-air don't work too well in my opinion since they deal knockback at a high angle, and it's just awkward at high percentages when you hit them off stage with a F-air and they can recover without using a jump.
N-B, however, is surprisingly effective at killing, granted not at lower percentages. As I stated earlier in parentheses, if you tap B and then hold it, it will release a small projectile, but charge the bite. The projectile stuns long enough for a full bite to hit. As of right now, I am testing this against Shulk. It kills at around 107% from center stage of Omega Battlefield (the cool kid FD). I was getting kills as low as 104%, but 107% is when Shulk is completely unable to act before dying. THIS BEING SAID, HOWEVER: Neutral B can be rather predictable. It does however come out quickly, especially within the bite range.
S-B can kill around equal percentage if you don't skewer, but do tipper. Not much else to say about that other than the predictability because you aren't closing the gap as much as if you were going for an aerial.
The weaknesses to most of his moves (bolded and in pink):
- N-air has ending lag until the mask is gone (double jump allows 1 N-air and the start of a second)
- U-air less ending lag, full 2 in double jump. Throwing out an U-air at the peak of full hop allows barely enough time to jump before hitting the ground. You practically need to be right at the ground to hit equal height characters in front of you if they are on the ground.
- B-air has a good amount of starting lag to it. In a short hop, you must do it at the peak of the hop to about 1/3 of the way back down otherwise it won't come out fully. Also predictable. Who ever heard of a swordsman facing away?
- D-air... [bingo free space] Lasts an extremely long time and sends you straight down to hell (or the stage), CAN SPIKE, BUT RARELY DOES (if the opponent gets hit once and you get hit out of it or the move ends, from my understanding. I would supply a video but 3ds recording. RIP), I only recommend using it if you're up stocks, are good at footstooling into a recovery, or are on a stage with walls down the sides.
- F-air is a pretty average swordsman swing. Starts above you so it can stop someone above and in front of you.
- N-B is just odd with having two separate held charges. Not particularly the most useful move in the arsenal, and the projectile is pretty weak to boot. Kind of a weird mix of Samus's charge shot and ZSS's paralyzer. The bite is pretty good if you can get it off, but it's pretty predictable if you're just going for a ranged shot with it, as it has some ending lag to the bite, but not much. I would not recommend charging it unless you're trying to off-stage snipe.
- U-B is very predictable, both as recovery and out of shield, but does have good priority and range on the hurtbox. Not all that good vertical and horizontal though. Still decent.
- S-B is pointless to do on the ground if you don't double-tap B for a fast skewer and a bit predictable if you're setting up for a tipper on it as it has a noticeably longer range. The sword does not stop projectiles if you miss the skewer and you're still in the air when the attack stops, and then slide a bit before you can act. Cannot be used again until you land on a platform, kind of like a damaging short range tether. It is possible to hit a target and skewer the ground, but not the target. Kind of a "sourspot tipper", as in it does knockback and damage as if it was a tipper, but you still skewer the ground.
- D-B is a good counter that hits either side of Corrin straight upwards. It can be used near the top of the stage to get a start kill somewhat easily if you break out of an opponent's combo and they don't retreat, or if you bait them trying to counter one of your combos near the top. Other than that, it's good on occasion, but, like the other swordsmen, it is a noticeable counter, due to the iconic sound and the large shift of the body and positioning.
- Jab is... strange. Only the first jab has a tipper, which can have inward knockback at the tip, has outwards knockback otherwise. Second and third jab are decent, nothing to write home about. Jab-spam (or whatever the technical term for it is) seems typical to me. If anybody can further comment on jabs, that would be great. But yeah, inwards knockback tipper. I'm counting that as a stupid spacing disadvantage.
- F-tilt, I have no complaints. Maybe somebody else does.
- D-tilt, same here
- U-tilt will not hit short characters, but that's an understandable flaw, since it is an up tilt after all. Edit: it can hit short characters, but you have to be close as the sword raises at a high angle.
- Dash attack is a cool animation, nothing more. Stays out for a while and has only a bit of ending lag, but the animation is pretty readable, as that's the only move of Corrin's to stay along the ground but stop for a moment before lunging. Yep, Corrin does a bit of a standing slide while starting the dash attack.
Now, by no means am I an expert at the inner workings of Sm4sh. I did not go through and record the frames and cross reference them with every other character or anything, this is what I took at face value through playing Corrin. If anyone sees any corrections or notes I should make, don't be afraid to tell me. Especially since this character is new.
Corrout, out
Edited utilt and a few writing mistakes. And man, mobile is bad at editing. Or my phone is.