"I don't care how strong you are. It's not strong enough!" Roy Match Up Thread

[PsionicSabreur]

Roy loses when he gets grabbed but wins the rest of the matchup. He is much more dominant in stage control and can combo Ganon pretty hard. Ganon's uair does edgeguard frustratingly well, but Flare Blade and Roy's other assorted edgeguards are just as deadly. Unlike most characters, Ganon should also be legitimately afraid of counter (just don't use it on the ground and get grabbed).
It is a bad matchup, but I don't really think it turns out that poorly. There is absolutely no reason for Ganon to be getting that many grabs if you're spacing correctly.
80:20, even for Melee Roy, sounds a bit off, really.

 

[StevenBeastMode]

I don't find Ganon to be a hard matchup once you figure it out, and get a rhythm. Once I stop getting Flame Choked and such, and start countering some of his heavier moves, the match is over for Ganon. I really like the f-tilt during that match-up because of the range it has, and how it stops plenty of Ganon's moves.

 

[G13_Flux]

Samus is another. Even some of roys most reliable combos like uair > fsmash dont work that well on her because of her low falling speed and combo breakers like nair, up B, and down B. Her CC is great, between her dtilt, dsmash, and crawl attack. She is also very good at keeping roy at bay with projectiles, spaced ftilts, and zairs. Even more, with the added beam swap, she has kill combos that are pretty reliable on you now.

As far as ganon goes, you have better ground mobility in every way and out space him with all of your tilts. Id say its a definite that roy is better in neutral positioning than Ganon is. As far as combos and killing goes, I think it could come close when talking about who racks up damage faster and kills more efficiently. Roy has lengthie combos and probably racks more damage than ganon does, but ganon can kill very efficiently on the edge at low percents on roy, and has enough combos to help work you off the edge. You do relatively the same to him. i think this MU honestly depends on who is able to capitalize on punishes from neutral, and might be swayed slightly in roys favor because of his better flexibility on the ground, and higher ranged attacks that work very well when spaced on Gdorf.

For those of you thinking ganon is hard, what specifically do you think makes it challenging?

 

[StevenBeastMode]

I mostly only face my friend's Ganon, so I don't know very much about the matchup at higher levels of play since this friend mains Lucario, but every time I face his Ganon there's an onslaught of Flame Chokes, Ganon Boots, and fAirs. The Flame Choke starts out pretty frustrating, but after a little bit I just use f-tilt to hit him out of it. The Ganon boots start to get countered, effectively ending that option. The fAirs always just suck though. I can approach better than he can with nAirs and such, and then Ganon's recovery is really predictable so once those 3 aforementioned moves are stopped, it's no longer hard at all. That's my experience with the matchup.

 

[DMG]

Ganon Dthrow is strong vs Roy. Quite strong. Bad **** happens to him

 

[KariteSama]

I hate the Samus matchup. I just hate fighting Samus period. I can never get any kind of followups. Drives me crazy. Granted I'm not very good but that's just what I go through.

 

[FirexBolt]

Yeah, this MU seems really difficult to me too. I know Ganon has more power than Roy so I try to play defensively, but you can really play up close defense against Ganon cuz of his U-Smash. You can't play far defense cuz Roy's sourspot is the tip of his sword. The most you can do defensively is Counter. In my opinion DED is great against Ganon.

Stage preferences (imo):
Final Destination
Yoshi's Story
Smashville
Green Hill Zone
Fountain of Dreams
Distant Planet

 

[G13_Flux]

despite the fact that roys tips arent the sweetspots, you can still space effectively with them. Ganon does not have any solid OOS options to deal with roys range. If Ganons dthrow is the kryptonite for roy in this MU, i would recommend simply not getting grabbed then, as Ganon doesnt exactly have an easy time getting grabs on fast characters. I think that smart use of fair, nair, ftilt, dtilt, jab, and DED will work pretty easily to shut down Ganons approaches. He might be able to do a lot once hes inside, but if you are careful enough he should have one hell of time getting up close.

Pretty much most of the stages you mentioned, FirexBolt, are pretty good stages for roy. I think i might have to say though that roy would also perform pretty decently on larger stages against ganon, like dreamland, distant planet, draculas castle, and rumble falls, mainly because of how much more mobility you have than him. you can use the stage size to your advantage since you can cover so much more space quicker than he can. This also gives you a better chance to survive longer, especially in distant planets case, since the stage is large and the blast zone is close, meaning you dont have to worry as much about not making it back to the stage. The ceiling is also relatively low in this stage, meaning that things like dair, dsmash, and bair and kill earlier.

 

[FirexBolt]

My honest opinion is that Ganon is OP as f. My friend played a Ganon CPU the other day and the CPU didn't have to L-Cancel his N-air's at all. My friend won the match still with one SD and 3 stocks, but we both thought his N-air was pretty OP. I decided to play against one as Fox and I got hit with one U-Smash. 0-41%. That being said, I try to watch for those and his B-air and F-air. Speaking of Aeirals, that's why this MU is the same, if not harder than, it is in Melee. Roy's aerial game is like his core, imo, but Ganon's aerial game looks better to me. That being said, Roy's forced to the ground where I feel his can't operate as smoothly as he can in the air.

 

[Blade-Fox]

My honest opinion is that Ganon is OP as f. My friend played a Ganon CPU the other day and the CPU didn't have to L-Cancel his N-air's at all. My friend won the match still with one SD and 3 stocks, but we both thought his N-air was pretty OP. I decided to play against one as Fox and I got hit with one U-Smash. 0-41%. That being said, I try to watch for those and his B-air and F-air. Speaking of Aeirals, that's why this MU is the same, if not harder than, it is in Melee. Roy's aerial game is like his core, imo, but Ganon's aerial game looks better to me. That being said, Roy's forced to the ground where I feel his can't operate as smoothly as he can in the air.

I think the Ganon match-up is better here just for the simple fact that Roy has better spacing tools and better/varied block strings to apply pressure with..(and this is before he even leaves the ground).

Ganon hits like a Mac Truck. There's no question about that but Roy isn't a slouch either when it comes to high-damage hits or just building damage in general. I found that stopping Ganon from setting up his wall or getting to platforms usually does well. Depending on how close I spawn to him, I usually just rush him down. If he gets his footing though, I just back off and hit him with the tip of Roy's Sweetspots (sometimes sourspots) just to build up damage.

Ganon also combos nicely for Roy so I'm pretty much in agreement with @ G13_Flux .

What are you guys/gals' thoughts on Snake?

 

[KariteSama]

I think the reason Roy has trouble against Ganon is his DD game. Marth has an amazing DD as does Fox which is why those characters have such an easy time against Ganon. Ganon has trouble spacing on the ground because of his poor ground mobility. Roy just has trouble dealing with that because he isn't that fast on the ground. Also because Ganon falls so quickly Roy has trouble with his followups. It's just difficult to get combos started reliably while avoiding the insane power of Ganon's hits.

 

[PsionicSabreur]

Roy has more than enough ground mobility. Definitely enough to deal with Ganon.
Also, if there's one thing you should never complain about, it's fast falling speeds. Roy combos fastfallers and semi-fastfallers very effectively. Try using dtilt and utilt more if they're escaping uair juggles.

What are you guys/gals' thoughts on Snake?

I haven't had way too much Snake experience, but my impression is that it isn't too bad as long as I keep up with good chases and don't try too hard to get punishes off of shielding (dash attack goes right through, and grabs and C4 aren't fun for Roy). Snake can do some CC grab shenanigans (or just crouching under things in general), but it's not all that difficult to keep away from.
Overall, Snake can't really camp hard enough to win, and he isn't fast enough to sway most neutral situations in his favor if you keep applying pressure from a safe distance. Both punish each other pretty hard, but I couldn't tell you which is better unless I see/play the matchup more.

 

[G13_Flux]

if the ganon vs. roy MU is more towards ganon (which i dont believe it is, i think roys at advantage, or its even) its certainly not because of mobility. Roy is only slightly slower than marth, and his DD is actually quite amazing. all of his aerials will also beat out ganons if spaced properly, and if youre having a hard time utilizing it, just try dtilting.

This issue i see with snake is that he has a great defensive game. spacing is a must, or else youre gonna eat OOS all day. snake is great at forcing reactions with his projectiles, and is going to be very effective at forcing you into the air to try and make punishes. If you give snake any breathing room, then youre going to have a maze of projectiles to deal with, which might be hard to deal with given the limited distance roy can reach in the air. You are definitely going to need to space a lot, and apply constant pressure to snake to keep him from his projectile antics. Both combo to kill pretty nicely, so like ganon, i would say this comes down to efficiency in the neutral game, which is probably going to be much better on snakes part if he can play a tight projectile game and effectively limit roys approach options, which i dont think his side b will give him any trouble doing. I would say this one might be even or possibly in snakes favor, DEPENDING on how successful his projectile game is at limiting and shutting down roys approach.

 

[Brim]

May I just pitch in? I may be terribly wrong, but from what I've played so far (including against a non-CPU combatant) Ness seems to be a very difficult MU for Roy. I recently played a few friendlies against a Ness player I've known for quite some time, and I just had the hardest times even from down-right getting back to the stage from ridiculous Ness combos even when DIing correctly. Mostly because he could double-spike me when I was trying to get back.

Also, as an additional note, I strongly feel like Roy's recovery options were taken away from Roy in the sense he can almost never get back to the stage without his DEDs to help him get lift when getting back to the stage. Take it from a guy that's played Roy for over 7 years, he feels drastically changed in even just recovery based options. And there's just the fact that chasing with Roy off stage is almost guaranteed suicide because very few of his attacks can KO and give Roy any chance of getting back.

Meh, that was my temporary rant - where's yours?

 

[StevenBeastMode]

About the DED, I don't really mind it. It's something that just becomes habit, like fast-falling or l-canceling during a SHFFL. Roy's never really had recovery options. Just DED and Blazer. I like to use dAir as a meteor right next to the ledge, and I like using bAir as well. It's dangerous, but the pay-off is amazing. Most characters can't survive the dAir meteor, and the bAir has just so much killing power. Not much of a rant, but...

 

[PsionicSabreur]

Roy's offstage game feels better to me, if anything, and I've put a lot of effort into him since the Melee days. N-B, bair, fair, and dair will all work if you time your jumps correctly, whether SH'd from the stage or ledgehopped. Unlike Melee, they actually have enough knockback to edgeguard properly, too.
His recovery also feels better than the original, to be honest, and very similar as well. He gets at least the same distance, and blazer has better protective coverage and actually pushes edgeguarders away for long enough to get back on his feet. With smart use of DED stalling and angling I get the feeling that Roy's recovery isn't quite as vulnerable as it may seem.

As for Ness, he's got great punishes on Roy, but has a really bad case of stubby arm syndrome. He's also a pretty nice combo weight and fall speed, although Roy's punishes will be outclassed by Ness's. Also, Roy possibly destroys Ness's recovery even more than Ness destroy's Roy's. Counter is pretty evil against unsweetspotted PKT2 (or if you jump into a high recovery with it off a good read), fair, flare blade, etc. can all ruin his recovery when he's setting up PKT2, and I'm fairly sure Flare Blade actually beats it out, as well.

 

[DMG]

His offstage game is basically better for one main reason: the buffs to neutral B. 90% of the time if you go offstage, it's to use that move. You can actually run off with an uncharged neutral B and make it back to the edge.

But really though, there's very little need for offstage Fair Nair or Dair. Use Neutral B, or wait onstage (or more minorly, grab the edge for a timed counter attack with x aerial if need be). You don't need fancy stuff with Roy offstage, just try to not let them back on and to finish stuff lingering near the edge with B. GG your Roy will evolve

 

[G13_Flux]

I have to agree that neutral B is a godsend. Its coverage is absolutely amazing and has enough knockback to KO reliably at relatively low percents compared other characters with good edge guarding moves. Also it can be combined into. Did I mention it's coverage? It's literally like 140 degrees of straight KO potential.

In relation till the Ness MU, I would actually have to agree that Roy would out class Ness because of his greater flexibility in the neutral game and his more effective edge guard options. He also has A LOT more range than Ness, and A LOT more speed than him on the ground. Despite the fact that Ness does have an amazing punish > combo game against Roy, the above attributes i mentioned makes Ness extremely dependent on making more difficult reads to get punishes. They both have great combo > kill games, but since Roy has more flexibility in gaining advantageous positioning, and dealing with Ness when he's off the edge (great on and off stage options to punish a predictable and high start up recovery), I feel that smart Roy players well be able to easily shine in this MU.

Ness does have a projectile that sets up for a lot of combos, but it's a projectile that you utilise in conjunction with reads from rolls and tech chasing more of the time as opposed to straight up approaching your opponent while trying to stay as safe as possible.

The one thing I will say that Ness does have against Roy it's a very effective pressure game. His DJC works well against your few, quick OOS options. This can be very detrimental if the Roy player is not as efficient at capitalizing on ness's mistakes in the neutral game.

 

[KariteSama]

Ness can also gimp Roy pretty easily.

 

[G13_Flux]

He definitely can, but i feel that roy gimps harder, at least on ness's recovery. Ness's recovery is just much slower, and easy to punish. Roys recovery isnt good by any means, but it at least covers him well and is quick, making it harder to edgeguard.

 

[KariteSama]

I feel like Ness has more options though. I've played quite a bit of Ness and I am always able to get back even against gimp heavy characters. I think Roy has better onstage coverage though so that's where he is a lot stronger in ledgeguarding. Ness has a lot of lag and is easy to punish when he lands on stage.

 

[StevenBeastMode]

Today I played at TFP5, and I played DK, Ness, and Ganon. The DK matchup wasn't too fun, but I feel like DK doesn't always have too many options from a neutral position. The Ness matchup was also not very fun on WarioWare. When we moved it to Yoshi's Island from Brawl, I 3 stocked him. So the Ness matchup isn't actually all that bad. I could just outrange or outpace him the whole time. The Ganon matchup just sucked. When I got in, it wasn't too hard for me, but if he created distance by Sparta Kicking me, then it went downhill. There was also many a-time where I tried to hit him with a SHFFL'd air, just to get hit by "The Punch" (fAir). The kid playing DK and Ness was probably a bit below my skill level. The Ganon player I played was Fedex, if anyone knows who that is.

 

[KariteSama]

I feel like DK doesn't always have too many options from a neutral position.

DK has such a difficult time approaching. Nair is the only good option and it has minimal range. If you play defensively he isn't too hard to wall out with most characters. You just can't get grabbed.

 

[StevenBeastMode]

DK has such a difficult time approaching. Nair is the only good option and it has minimal range. If you play defensively he isn't too hard to wall out with most characters. You just can't get grabbed.

Yeah I did notice that he threw out a lot of nAirs. I just dashdanced outside of his range to get him to approach me. One time I got grabbed, bThrow-ed, and fAir spiked. That one hurt.

 

[A Revelation]

Alright I've gotten some experience in certain other matchups.

Falco
Kirby
King DeDeDe
Sonic
Lucario

I'm letting the game mature a bit before I go on updating and posting some more.

 

[Brim]

Have an update on my opinion of the MU for Ness (I think it's specifically a glitch though):
During our matches obviously Ness could get a few grabs on me, and I'm a player that loves to try to poke Ness to keep him away from getting his grabs, and now I can't remember specifically what tilt this was, but one of the A-tilts hits Ness and he still goes through and grabs me, and it happens more than once. Has anyone else seen this? I think it's more than stupid that even exists, also another observation we made is there's apparently various things that can happen when you Power shield Ness' PK fire.
Example one: Sometimes if you Power shield PK fire it'll deflect back at Ness as your own projectile even though it's supposed to activate regardless on shield.
Example two: The ladder of what I described (see example one) happens and the fire lingers on your shield, but you'll still hear the shield noise when a projectile becomes your projectile through Power shielding but does not deflect off your shield.
Example three: PK fire fizzles out.

 

[G13_Flux]

Well if his grab is in range it well grab you regardles, even if your tilt his him. If a grab and an attack collide, the grabbing character still sustains the damage of your attack, but their grab goes through your attack. that's how the game handles grab-attack priority situations. remember that Roy's hurt box will probably extend slightly as well when sticking his arm out during the move

 

[Seraphim.]

Any advice on fighting Sonic?

 

[G13_Flux]

Well sonic can easily be out prioritized, long range lingering attacks are the best to use. things like jab, ftilt, nair, and utilt all have great hit boxes and can really help prevent his approaches. You just have to try to get efficient at anticipating how he is going to come at you, since his approaches are varied and come at relatively high speeds.

 

[Brim]

Well if his grab is in range it well grab you regardles, even if your tilt his him. If a grab and an attack collide, the grabbing character still sustains the damage of your attack, but their grab goes through your attack. that's how the game handles grab-attack priority situations. remember that Roy's hurt box will probably extend slightly as well when sticking his arm out during the move

So, wait is this on purpose? Can someone explain to me why a grab would get priority over a tilt? I just don't get why his grab shouldn't be interrupted if I hit him before he can actually grab me; trust me I've played the Roy Vs. Ness game a lot. I've seen how the tilt almost always interrupts the grab before this version (been playing since 2.5).

 

[G13_Flux]

Well a grab comes out on frame 7. If your tilt connects with Ness before frame 7, then he well not grab you. If your tilt connects with Ness ON frame 7, then he takes the damage but the grab goes through. If you start your tilt, but his grab connects with you before the tilts hitbox comes out, then obviously he grabs you because your tilt never connected.

These are the only 3 things that really can happen in this situation. If you truly think that your situation doesn't match these and think it's a bug, then the only way any one can really help you is if you take a video of it

 

[Kally Wally]

Grabs have always taken priority, at least since Melee. The only difference now is that the grabbing opponent takes the damage.

 

[Brim]

Well, I'll see if I can start recording our matches for the obvious two reasons:
1. Try to figure out what exactly is going on with our grab situations.
2. Try to get your opinions on how well I play - granted I feel I'm a crummy player at the moment; but we'll see.

 

[Brim]

Only real problem is my means of recording is through an older Hauppauge.

 

[Kneato]

After watching Sethlon's sets from Apex, it looks like on fast fallers you can chain a bunch of SHFFL'd Uairs together. Same thing with Dtilt -> Fair chains.

On a different note, Roy seems to excel against fast fallers, but has a much harder time dealing with floaties because of his lacking vertical chase and his neutered edge guarding game due to poor recovery. If one was to pick a complimentary main, like someone who has good matchups where Roy has bad ones, who would people suggest?

 

[Kally Wally]

I agree with your assessment. Fortunately for me, I've mained Lucas since 2.5, and Up-Throw makes floaties cry.

 

[PsionicSabreur]

I'd say that Roy's offstage game is adequate and that edgeguarding isn't so much of a problem, but vertical chasing is possibly the single biggest hole in his offense.

Sheik is a fairly traditional Melee backup for Roy mains, but I personally go with Lucas and a little bit of Pikachu as secondaries. Both seem to deal with troublesome floaty matchups quite well.

 

[Signia]

After watching Sethlon's sets from Apex, it looks like on fast fallers you can chain a bunch of SHFFL'd Uairs together. Same thing with Dtilt -> Fair chains.

On a different note, Roy seems to excel against fast fallers, but has a much harder time dealing with floaties because of his lacking vertical chase and his neutered edge guarding game due to poor recovery. If one was to pick a complimentary main, like someone who has good matchups where Roy has bad ones, who would people suggest?

He has decent vertical chase. When they're on low platforms, SH Uair spam is rapid fire and racks up a good amount of damage. Full hop neutral air and full hop neutral B should be fine for various other angles. This isnt Melee Roy, you don't have to full hop fair and run away anymore. Remember that neutral B buff, that's a game-changer for Roy imo.

 

[KariteSama]

Roy is my secondary to Ivy. Ivy is amazing off the ledge because of Bair but struggles against spacies which is who i switch to Roy for (as well as fast fallers in general).

 

[Glass]

He has decent vertical chase. When they're on low platforms, SH Uair spam is rapid fire and racks up a good amount of damage. Full hop neutral air and full hop neutral B should be fine for various other angles. This isnt Melee Roy, you don't have to full hop fair and run away anymore. Remember that neutral B buff, that's a game-changer for Roy imo.

Speaking of his Short Hop Uair, SH Uair seems to combo floaties very well