[Guide] Built With Courage: The Smash 4 Link Analysis Thread

[Bravo]

Do you guys know of any combos Link might have? I've heard people say he has trouble doing them. And is there any word on his custom specials? Also, please PM me a download code if you have one. I would like to try this stuff out myself. I would really appreciate it.

I've been able to hit with the first hit of bair, autocancel into the ground to:

• Jab, so you can jab cancel and hit with something like uptilt, down smash or even spin attack, depending on percentage.
• Up tilt strings.
• Down smash.
• Haven't tried turn around grab but I guess that it would work too.

Nair into other things seems to work too, like jab, grab, or uptilt. Fair works similar too.
Double back air works at low % as well.
And Zair into stuff.

 

[thedoctr11]

Do you guys know of any combos Link might have? I've heard people say he has trouble doing them. And is there any word on his custom specials? Also, please PM me a download code if you have one. I would like to try this stuff out myself. I would really appreciate it.

Check out the video in the second post ZeRo had a few combos going.

 

[smashbrolink]

Do you guys know of any combos Link might have? I've heard people say he has trouble doing them. And is there any word on his custom specials? Also, please PM me a download code if you have one. I would like to try this stuff out myself. I would really appreciate it.

I'm not that good a combo-ist, myself, so many of my matches don't end up with me doing a lot of them.
However, his Zair is still a really good tool for opening up an opportunity for a grab or a quick follow-up.
You could try going with Zair-tap A followed by an up tilt or down smash.

 

[A_Phoenix_Down]

Whoa, so his first F-Smash hit now has tipper as well as the ability to perform the second hit effectively? After all the improvements Link's got this is like the icing on the cake.

 

[ibmutt]

A rising full jump Uair auto cancels. You have to do the Uair very early but it does. The long hitbox means that this could be a pretty effective juggle tool. Perhaps, Link could punish spot dodges for characters with slow air speeds. Uair's landing lag isn't that bad either. But Uair takes a long time to complete if it's not interrupted by landing. So I think Uair will be used near to the ground or some platform.

 

[Zane the pure]

But Uair takes a long time to complete if it's not interrupted by landing. So I think Uair will be used near to the ground or some platform.

Ideally one would want to do so and platform cancel upon landing, so good idea.

also, d-tilt spike hitbox into D-air spike, comboing meteors ladies and gentlemen:

 

[san.]

If you turnaround soft throw a bomb, it won't explode. It's difficult to perform this on the ground with the circle pad with an input similar to B reversal with A instead, but it should be easy on the Gamecube controller. You can also turnaround throw the bomb in the air as you land and it's much easier to perform that way.

 

[FooltheFlames]

Bach hit of the down smash is such wicked kill move now :3

 

[link and ike lover]

I don't like links new Down Aerial. I've always hated Tls Down Aerial and I was so good using Links Down aerial for many purposes like when people are off the stage I would always Jump and use the down aerial. But with Tls you miss you die..........

 

[andilex]

idk if this has been posted to
but now links bombs don't explode if they are shielded.
they just land of the floor.

this seems like a buff to his bombs

 

[ibmutt]

In the Demo, you can drop bombs without Zairing as shown below. I think you press zair just after you lift off the ground. I don't know if this is in Brawl, you may need frame precision and I'm not sure if this was posted or not.

Here are videos of the two things I talked about earlier.

 

[Kevandre]

In past smash games I haven't really liked Link that much... But I'm really enjoying him in the demo over the other characters which is shocking since I generally enjoyed Mario in previous games as well

 

[Kamiko]

I don't know if this has been discussed anywhere yet, but the jump attack goes over projectiles.

 

[thedoctr11]

In the Demo, you can drop bombs without Zairing as shown below. I think you press zair just after you lift off the ground. I don't know if this is in Brawl, you may need frame precision and I'm not sure if this was posted or not.

Here are videos of the two things I talked about earlier.

I'm gonna test this out! In Brawl pressing Z and no other button/direction would neutral drop the bomb like the first gif. I'm having a hard time duplicating that though.

What I have noticed is that his Dair is still viable off stage as it was in brawl. I can easily get back on stage. Canceling air dodge with Zair to hold onto a projectile, generally his bomb, is back but it suffers from land lag applied to air dodge. Does not auto cancel like a normal Zair.

 

[Crudedude]

So I was playing link in demo (sadly don't have the game) that dash attack is amazing. On the side link's grab gets the zss' tether grab treatment . Sometimes it doesn't grab opponents when they duck or just landed (occasionally when they attack). There was an eye sore point that claw shot doesn't grab and it's behind the end of the claw ( where chain meets claw). I've done this nurmerous times with mario. Hitting mario with daerial then after second hop perform an up Ariel and the couple should connect.

 

[FlynnCL]

For some extraordinary reason I decided to compare Max Launch Speed growths with some of Link's fresh kill moves at varying percentages (mostly up in tens) against an idle P2 Mario. It was fun to create but I doubt this is 100% accurate or even useful in the slightest.

Forward-tilt and Spin Attack are extremely similar in base / growth power. Link's tipper forward-smash 1 has low-ish base power, yet high growths that surpass both f-tilt and up-b around 60-80 percent.

Forward-smash 2 is extremely strong and maintains high growths; it's definitely his best kill move. His vertical hitting dash attack (which is the non-tipper dash attack that deals 13%) is a close second, with similar base power and only slightly lower growths than f-smash 2.

 

[Krynxe]

I'm sure most of this is already known, but here's some on my observation on Link's down air:

Link can autocancel his dair from a fullhop double jump. You input dair right as you use your double jump, causing you to float back to the ground with a dair. If you dont fastfall, it will actually autocancel when you reach the floor giving you zero lag. If you hit someone midair, you can either followup or fastfall to the stage with no lag depending on your height.

Because the dair is out for so long, there are some interesting things that happen when it connects with an opponent. If you hit a shielding opponent on the stage, because the dair is so close to ending, it will actually put you right into your normal fall animation allowing you to do something like nair, or simply back off. (remember that you dont have double jump here because you used it) If it actually hits an opponent on the ground or very close, you will again have all of your aeriel option, meaning you can actually combo the attack directly into nair/bair/uair.

I've done similar dair combos where I'll dair someone and bounce, hit them again and then combo that into nair/bair/uair. This is extra nice because, unlike the example above, you get to use your double jump and it gives you more consistent followups. Keeping track of when your dair is going to end and taking advantage of that for followups is key.

Dair also has ridiculous priority. I did this autocancel dair trick above a Villager and he used upsmash (an incredibly disjointed hitbox with multi-hit properties) and I simply pogo'd right off of the attack's hitbox taking no damage. That's why I feel like this trick could actually see some competitive use, since dair is such a tricky move to beat - having the ability to eliminate it's biggest flaw (landing lag) has a lot of potential despite throwing away the element of surprise when doing so. Doing this in tandem with bomb throwing can create a strong evasive/runaway game that will be hard to approach. Also, autocancel dairs may very well be easier to do when falling from being launched, or on stages with platforms, giving you more surprise and also possibly your double jump.

 

[SirroMinus1]

Run turn around short hop back air & forward air? run turn around up smash?

 

[Unkown Hero]

@ Crudedude What do you mean "ZSS treatment" with his grab?

 

[DarkDeity15]

I dunno if this has been said already, but you can double Bair combo until about 60%. Feels great to land.

 

[Magnamancy]

Someone earlier raised the point that Link's Hylian Shield shut down the Villager's projectiles, but unless I'm blind, which I might be so I'm sorry if this has been discussed, but what I haven't seen talked about is how thoroughly it shuts down Megaman too.

Besides Megaman's lemons and FSmash, it also neuters his NeutralB, DownB, and SideB. Of note here is that Megaman's at just the right height that his lemons/sideB will naturally go under the Hylian Shield occasionally unless you're ducking. The DownB is a bit more unpredictable, but I'm relatively certain your Hylian Shield only has to block the leaf that would first hit you, which means you might need to stand or duck depending on the situation.

The really interesting thing I've found though is that aside from blocking it in the first place, the Hylian Shield will also block the explosion of a Megaman's SideB when it's already attached to Link, at least from the front.

I can also confirm that the Hylian Shield remains in a blocking position when walking at all speeds below a full on run, alongside when Link is standing and ducking, if there was any question over that.

 

[Crudedude]

@ Crudedude What do you mean "ZSS treatment" with his grab?

You know in brawl zero suit samus tries to grab you and you can be just sitting there/falling and it just doesn't grab you? Well that bug seems to be present on link then again I'm just playing the demo

 

[The Real Gamer]

For anyone who's interested I watched some high level Smash 4 play last night on FOW's Twitch stream. He did a best to 5 against a really strong Brawl Link named Scizor (not familiar w/ him since I never followed Brawl's competitive scene).

Regardless his Link was easily the best I've seen yet so I think a lot of you would enjoy. http://www.twitch.tv/1fow1/b/571787575 The match starts at around 08:04:55 (8 hrs 4 mins 55 secs).

Also if any of you are interested in seeing how good FOW is he beat both Zero and Nairo in a best to 10 with his Ness. 05:23:30 for Zero and 06:40:00 for Nairo. He might be the most talented player so far in terms of Smash 4 streamers. Definitely give him a follow if you're into watching high level play the guy deserves it.

 

[Unkown Hero]

You know in brawl zero suit samus tries to grab you and you can be just sitting there/falling and it just doesn't grab you? Well that bug seems to be present on link then again I'm just playing the demo

No,I didn't know, sorry I just don;t play ZSS but when you try to grab, are you sure it's not near the end of the grab
s length and animation because that might be the problem. I don't I am really tried just waking up.

 

[ImaClubYou]

Jabs: String very well. Good damage, good reach.

Up tilt: Good for combos at low % kills at 130. Generally fast for a kill move.

Forward tilt: Same as Up tilt but isn't used for combos. GREAT spacing tool especially with pivots.

Down tilt: Least useful imo. Haven't used it much but it can be used as a combo breaker since it comes out fast.

Dash Attack: Great move. Don't spam it. Kills at 110-130. Punish air dodges, landing lag. Don't recommend tech chasing with it as the main use.

Forward Smash: Kills at 90 potentially. Pretty good but it's pretty much just like Brawls.

Up Smash: Very good kill move. 3 hits racks up damage nicely. Kills at 100-120

Down Smash: First hit kills, from what I've seen. Can't find the sweetspot on the 2nd hit if it has one. Kills at 130 or something.

Nair: Great great move. Auto cancels but my favorite part is that it can gimp and Link can recover.

Bair: Same love to Nair except it's 2 hits can can also gimp. Kills around 150 if you decide to use it to kill. You can space and pressure with, you can short hop it and jump before landing. This move is crazy.

Dair: Probably his worst move out of the aerials though not necessarily useless. It can spike and even if you miss you can recover back to the ledge. If you miss the spike though I guarantee it won't be killing any time soon.

Up Air: Strong strong sweetspot, but the move is pretty hard to land, especially without platforms. Kills at 90 on the lighter characters.

Fair: Pretty good. 2 hits catches the high air dodge. If you get ledge trumped you can double jump fair back into the ledge.

Neutral B: Good projectile. Very fast. Does 12% fully charged. Great for edgeguards(kills in sudden death lol), great for tech chases you can't catch, good for zoning, etc. 10/10 projectile

Side B: Spammable, especially off the ledge. Pretty good, but it doesn't really do anything other than do damage. You can do some windbox shenanigans too I guess.

Down B: Bombs. Not as good as previous installments. At least for now. It does 5 damage on impact but there's this incredibly hard sweetspot that can do 10. If you throw it down you can combo into nair.

Up B: Much better this time around solely because of how walls work in this game. Gravitating upwards hugging the wall helps Link a lot. Also kills.

Grabs: I have nothing special to say about any of the grabs.

We all know what down throw leads to and what back throw and forward throw is used for and that up throw is usually bad.

 

[Woker!]

Just use 1 jab vs a mario, if they have 60-120 it can combo into dsmash, grab, and upB i think, after 120, 1 jab can combo with up smash and up tilt

 

[Bravo]

I'm gonna post this in here too, because I believe that this might be a big deal. Link can cancel his lag completely in some ocasions, like: Short hop arrow 's lag, ALL of his aerials (even dair!), airdodge into the ground, and airdodge+zair into the ground. The trick consists in having a bomb in hand when doing any of these actions, and pressing down+b at landing.

I know the video has toon link in it, but I tested this with Link and it certainly works. The only thing that doesn't is throwing the bomb backwards and catching it with an aerial. But if there is a bomb on the floor, or any way that it becomes catchable when doing an aerial, you can cancel the aerial's lag with the bomb cancel.

 

[DarkDeity15]

I'm gonna post this in here too, because I believe that this might be a big deal. Link can cancel his lag completely in some ocasions, like: Short hop arrow 's lag, ALL of his aerials (even dair!), airdodge into the ground, and airdodge+zair into the ground. The trick consists in having a bomb in hand when doing any of these actions, and pressing down+b at landing.

I know the video has toon link in it, but I tested this with Link and it certainly works. The only thing that doesn't is throwing the bomb backwards and catching it with an aerial. But if there is a bomb on the floor, or any way that it becomes catchable when doing an aerial, you can cancel the aerial's lag with the bomb cancel.

This is a ground breaking tech. People should be scared whenever Link takes out a bomb in this game. I confirmed F-air into bomb throw with this, and I'm sure Link can follow up after connecting a bomb for combos like Bomb pickup F-air> bomb throw lag cancel>another F-air. So many possibilities! It's simple to do as well. Now to test this some more. I wish I had the full game already, because I miss training mode. Not sure why it wasn't in the demo to begin with.

 

[Rizen]

Sorry I can't help with this yet I'll start doing work as soon as the Wii U version launches. Good work so far everyone!

 

[Jabberwockxeno]

Has link always had locational damage/knockback with his sword? I noticed that on the first hit of his foward smash, unless you hit with the tip, it does zero useful knockback, even at 999% it only knocks them a few character width's away.

 

[Rizen]

Has link always had locational damage/knockback with his sword? I noticed that on the first hit of his foward smash, unless you hit with the tip, it does zero useful knockback, even at 999% it only knocks them a few character width's away.

In Brawl Link's sword attacks usually did the same damage regardless of what part they hit with. There were a few exceptions: Fsmash 1 at the hilt could launch backwards at a different angle, Dsmash was stronger near Link, and Dtilt had spike hit bubbles (shown in yellow).

The tipper Fsmash is new to SSB4.

________________________________________________



How is Link's Dtilt spike in SSB4? That's a good thing to look into.

 

[DarkDeity15]

Has link always had locational damage/knockback with his sword? I noticed that on the first hit of his foward smash, unless you hit with the tip, it does zero useful knockback, even at 999% it only knocks them a few character width's away.

His forward smash was changed to be that way so that both hits can connect, but you stop being able to do that at high percents. It's still a cool feature imo, and both hits can kill very well either way.

In Brawl Link's sword attacks usually did the same damage regardless of what part they hit with. There were a few exceptions: Fsmash 1 at the hilt could launch backwards at a different angle, Dsmash was stronger near Link, and Dtilt had spike hit bubbles (shown in yellow).

The tipper Fsmash is new to SSB4.

________________________________________________



How is Link's Dtilt spike in SSB4? That's a good thing to look into.

All I know is that its pretty difficult to land, especially with the ledge-snap mechanic. Although the spike kills very early with how strong it is. Not sure at what percent, but it's very rewarding. Test it out yourself in training mode if you have the full game. You might need a buddy though. Either that or just get lucky and land it on a CPU like how I did it in the demo.

 

[A_Phoenix_Down]

So what part of his F-Smash do you guys think is better?

Link's First hit with Tipper?
Or
Link's full F-Smash (Second-Hit kill)

 

[DarkDeity15]

So what part of his F-Smash do you guys think is better?

Link's First hit with Tipper?
Or
Link's full F-Smash (Second-Hit kill)

Definitely the second hit. It can kill at around 80% lol. First swing tipper isn't as strong, but it kills at around 100. I'll get to testing as soon as I finish downloading the game.

 

[Jade_Rock55]

Second hit definetley if you have time to land it(if you missed the first hit or something),first is still useful as it is faster.

 

[ITALIAN N1NJA]

There doesn't seem to be a stickied match up thread so I thought I'd come here. I've been playing a lot and noticed the only games I have trouble closing out are usually against Sheik and Greninja players. Is there something I can do? They both have quick aerials on top of a quick projectile. The shield only blocks so much and projectiles only zone for so long. They both juggle Link in the air well and he struggles to get down. What should I do about this? Do any of you have tips to aid me. Do you think I should pick up a secondary to cover for these weaknesses? I really would rather not but the match up seems rather too difficult. The pressure on Link is too much and the Gale Boomerang help my opponent more than helping.

 

[A_Phoenix_Down]

They both juggle Link in the air well and he struggles to get down. What should I do about this? Do any of you have tips to aid me.

D-Air to the cranium.

 

[thedoctr11]

There doesn't seem to be a stickied match up thread so I thought I'd come here. I've been playing a lot and noticed the only games I have trouble closing out are usually against Sheik and Greninja players. Is there something I can do? They both have quick aerials on top of a quick projectile. The shield only blocks so much and projectiles only zone for so long. They both juggle Link in the air well and he struggles to get down. What should I do about this? Do any of you have tips to aid me. Do you think I should pick up a secondary to cover for these weaknesses? I really would rather not but the match up seems rather too difficult. The pressure on Link is too much and the Gale Boomerang help my opponent more than helping.

Until there is one feel free to discuss that here. I'll be updating the thread soon. (Had a nice long vacation)

 

[Scabe]

You could create a separate thread to gather for specific matchups which you can later compile into your thread or into a compiled matchup thread.

Also I was wondering how different this thread is to Blubba's thread? Curious to know what you guys think.

 

[thedoctr11]

You could create a separate thread to gather for specific matchups which you can later compile into your thread or into a compiled matchup thread.

Also I was wondering how different this thread is to Blubba's thread? Curious to know what you guys think.

The thread could possibly could use some narrowing down of the focus. I'll start putting together a matchup thread.