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

[ShadowGanon]

Rob is another character I don't like as roy, mainly because CC Dsmash and he shield grabs a lot of stuff.

oh and also his f tilt is like as big as ours, NO ONE CAN HAVE AN F TILT AS BIG AS OURS (shut up DDD mains)

I think I've got the answer to your problem.
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[Ghetto Blush]

Is it even possible to shield grab Rob when he side->b fairs you? Everytime I go for it I get hit by something like dsmash or dtilt.

 

[Gamegenie222]

So anyone got advice with Roy in the Lucas and Sonic match up I got bopped in these to MU yesterday?

Is it even possible to shield grab Rob when he side->b fairs you? Everytime I go for it I get hit by something like dsmash or dtilt.

I don't know actually but I been grab before when attempting to do this just tricky and super risky.

 

[TimeMuffinPhD]

Any tips for the Wolf matchup, or even Snake? Not sure what to pick or do against a good Roy.

 

[Nevermind]

So anyone got advice with Roy in the Lucas and Sonic match up I got bopped in these to MU yesterday?

I know I'm about a month late, but I'll share a bit of Sonic advice in case you or anyone else still struggles with the matchup.

Neutral: DO NOT COMMIT BEFORE HE DOES. Sonic might be fast, but he is weakened like Falcon in that he has no way of making you approach or commit in any way. In addition, almost all of his moves (spindash, most importantly) have very low priority and zero range outside of his own hurtbox. Use this to your advantage and try to stuff his approaches on reaction. Retreating fairs and d-tilts work wonders for this purpose, and Roy is just fast enough to pull off dash away>crouch>f-smash if your having trouble getting a kill at higher percents. Also, it should go without saying, but don't roll.

Punishing: Sonic has a middling fallspeed, so you generally only have to take into account two things when punishing him: up-b and spindash. Sonic players mash up-b while in hitstun, so do your best to avoid overly long up-air combos and other strings that might give him a chance to escape upward (Note: a down-air often follows an up-b; read and punish). Spindash can screw up sloppy techchase situations. If Sonic recovers from hitstun before hitting the ground, he will have time to start his spindash and immediately counterattack where other characters would be left with too little time to do anything similar. Keep this in mind and do not rush mindlessly into techchases where Sonic is airborne for any amount of time prior.

Getting punished: So you got antsy and let a misinformed attack go, huh? Let me guess: Sonic is spindashing back and forth around your shield? BE PATIENT. Angle your shield downward and do not act out of it until there's a gap in the pressure. The most common tactic after his type of spindash pressure is to jump behind your shield and come down with a d-air in an attempt to poke. If you manage to shield even that, then you're free to reset to neutral. Got hit? Don't miss the tech. Spindash actually has very poor damage, especially against characters with faster fallspeeds. The only way he can rack up serious damage with the move is by chaining together a large number of hits; and the only this is going to happen, generally, is if you miss a tech. Got thrown? The most dangerous throw is up-throw. It leads into either a n-air or a f-air. DI down and away to avoid the former and up and in to avoid the latter. Your DI should depend on your percent and where you are on the stage.

Edgeguarding: This is where you can and must be aggressive. Sonic has a strong neutral game, possesses the tools to escape a lot of punishes, and is ridiculously difficult to hit with a raw kill move. For these reasons, you have to take advantage of every opportunity to close out a stock when he is offstage. His recovery might be long, but it is like Luigi's in that it is slow and relatively predictable in its trajectory. Against Roy, the only safe form of recovery for Sonic is high - Neutral-b covers the low and mid options. Be aware of the potential for a spinshot and swat him away with fairs offstage until the possibility of him going high is gone, then simply hold b and use your free hand to itrl taunt. Be aware that Sonic's neutral-b can be shortened, and some players will do this to lull you into a false sense of security regarding the length of the attack, only to fully charge the last one and hit you.

Anyway, this is far from everything you need to know about the Sonic matchup, but I think I got most of the general stuff. Hope this helps. ^^

 

[smoothjazzyet]

Hey, i just registered to the forums to post there
So my question is more about PM roy than Melee roy but i didnt find a similar thread in project M forums
: How do you deal against Mario? You will think this is weird but i thought a good way to practice with the AI would be to try to 4-stock any of them.. and i dont do it against Mario ( i spent almost 3 hours trying it ). and i tried with my mother main, diddy kong, and did it first attempt, even though i hear sometimes that Mario is rough for Diddy + i think i'm actually a better diddy than roy's

Sorry this is the 3rd time i post this lol

 

[Binary Clone]

How should I be playing against floaties like Zelda and Peach?

Zelda I feel like I can just continue pressure and the MU isn't too bad, but Peach tends to give me trouble. I find it a lot more difficult to consistently combo or approach, and Peach's turnips hurt my recovery so much that I occasionally lose stocks really early.

 

[thechosenjuan]

As a very aggressive Roy player how does one beat Zelda/Samus. They can camp you out, making it hard to engage and they don't have to approach you. And if you do get in on them, they are too floaty to combo away on. I need help with these matchups.

 

[ShadowGanon]

As a very aggressive Roy player how does one beat Zelda/Samus. They can camp you out, making it hard to engage and they don't have to approach you. And if you do get in on them, they are too floaty to combo away on. I need help with these matchups.

As of 3.5, you can use the first hit of DED out of a run to clank projectiles (Mostly missiles, don't know if it works on ZSS's paralyzer gun). This is really handy in the Samus MU.

 

[Sylnic]

Any tips for the Ike matchup? I faced one recently in a small tournament, and couldn't figure out how to kill him. His weight makes it hard to kill him off the side, and I seem to fail at edgeguarding his linear recovery. It's too risky to go deep and stop his side-b wall jumps, and his up-b has so much disjoint that I can't seem to poke him through it. I seemed to do alright on-stage, though he certainly had more experience than me in that department.

Oh, and how should I be DI-ing his grabs? I wasn't entirely sure on that, and got hit by a few back airs because of it.

 

[Ghetto Blush]

Any tips for the Ike matchup? I faced one recently in a small tournament, and couldn't figure out how to kill him. His weight makes it hard to kill him off the side, and I seem to fail at edgeguarding his linear recovery. It's too risky to go deep and stop his side-b wall jumps, and his up-b has so much disjoint that I can't seem to poke him through it. I seemed to do alright on-stage, though he certainly had more experience than me in that department.

Oh, and how should I be DI-ing his grabs? I wasn't entirely sure on that, and got hit by a few back airs because of it.

Roy has a much harder time edge guarding Ike than Marth does, since the safe distance between Ike's Aether and your sword is pretty much the tip. One thing that kind of works is to charge Flare Blade at the edge at a distance that won't get you clipped by Aether. Since Ike's recovery is very predictable and pretty hard to sweetspot, you should be able to charge it for a pretty long time to mitigate the fact that you are hitting them near the tip of your sword. On stage Nair is very useful to stuff Quickdraw approaches. As for DI'ing the grabs, most Ikes will use back throw to fish for a Bair or F-tilt combo. To avoid this DI the opposite direction of where you are facing before the throw.

 

[Sylnic]

Roy has a much harder time edge guarding Ike than Marth does, since the safe distance between Ike's Aether and your sword is pretty much the tip. One thing that kind of works is to charge Flare Blade at the edge at a distance that won't get you clipped by Aether. Since Ike's recovery is very predictable and pretty hard to sweetspot, you should be able to charge it for a pretty long time to mitigate the fact that you are hitting them near the tip of your sword. On stage Nair is very useful to stuff Quickdraw approaches. As for DI'ing the grabs, most Ikes will use back throw to fish for a Bair or F-tilt combo. To avoid this DI the opposite direction of where you are facing before the throw.

If I go for a tipped neutral b, he just adjusts the angle of his up-B and either hits me with it or sweetspots. I feel like I'd have to have amazing timing, spacing, and speed to pull this off. Charging the neutral-b in place is just too obvious, I'd have to do an unexpected b-reverse or well timed wavedash. I'm considering baiting out an onstage up-b and then just hitting him with counter. I'm also gonna look more into planking at the ledge and then punishing with a bair or dair after I force him on stage. This is risky if I mess up, but I gotta work with what I got.

 

[Ghetto Blush]

If I go for a tipped neutral b, he just adjusts the angle of his up-B and either hits me with it or sweetspots. I feel like I'd have to have amazing timing, spacing, and speed to pull this off. Charging the neutral-b in place is just too obvious, I'd have to do an unexpected b-reverse or well timed wavedash. I'm considering baiting out an onstage up-b and then just hitting him with counter. I'm also gonna look more into planking at the ledge and then punishing with a bair or dair after I force him on stage. This is risky if I mess up, but I gotta work with what I got.

You actually don't have to charge the Flare Blade to punish Ike effectively. I just said to charge it since that is the easiest way to do it. If you can react to the moment that Ike dips above the ledge and your spacing is on point, you can punish him with short hop Flare Blade to knock him back off and since his wall jumps have been nerfed, he's pretty much dead at that point. Another thing to note is that Ike has no active hit box when he ascends with Aether so you can hold onto the ledge while he's coming up and then hit him with a spike/semi-spike Dair to knock him away while you jump up from the ledge.

 

[thechosenjuan]

Hey guys. Just got out of a tournament. Haven't had much Bowser experience, and unfortunately that's who I lost to in losers bracket. So what do I do against the big guy? Hard to approch and crouch cancels to dtilt eats up Roy's aerial approach IMO. I found myself struggling to approach at all against him. Some matchup advice could be useful from all you Roy's out there!

 

[Azureflames]

@ thechosenjuan In my experience the best thing to approach the MU is to avoid SHUFFL approaches and dtilt all together, respect his CC, and grab often. Approach him as if he always has super armor goin on. Taking space with Nair, Ftilt to box him out, grab to start combos, and i find you'll get the most success for finishing him off with DED xx> xx>> or the crossover aerial>Fsmash/ raw Fsmash if you read well. Overall though, i dont think i use Dtilt much at all in the MU since it's such a risky option against his CC; Knowing when to not overcommit is the key.

 

[thechosenjuan]

@ thechosenjuan In my experience the best thing to approach the MU is to avoid SHUFFL approaches and dtilt all together, respect his CC, and grab often. Approach him as if he always has super armor goin on. Taking space with Nair, Ftilt to box him out, grab to start combos, and i find you'll get the most success for finishing him off with DED xx> xx>> or the crossover aerial>Fsmash/ raw Fsmash if you read well. Overall though, i dont think i use Dtilt much at all in the MU since it's such a risky option against his CC; Knowing when to not overcommit is the key.

I still need to learn to play more patient with Roy. I always find myself playing too aggressively, and that's my biggest downfall.
Thanks for the advice though, I'll have to practice it some more!

 

[Sundark]

How best would Roy deal with Marths, in general? I really feel like it's an uphill battle. Most of the time I get grabbed and UTilt/Aired into oblivion. I have a similar problem with Sheik as well, I get juggled quite a bit, although when I can land a hit or two it usually turns out well. There's one guy in my scene who plays mostly those two, and I feel like I'm better than him but I'm having trouble overcoming the matchups.

 

[Azureflames]

@ Sundark It comes down to really understanding what they do, how they approach the MU vs you, and understanding what their gameplan is and adjusting to that. Sheik can play both aggressive and patient zoning game using needles and throws to put you into unfavorable positions offstage and punish you. Marth is mostly going to go for grabs and tippered Fair/Fsmashes. Both MU's are pretty difficult and focus on catching you in missed spacing, getting you offstage with knockback and throws, then edgeguarding you.

Id say to get better at the MU's just really become an expert in spacing vs their kit as well as understanding what/where to DI. (this will help you with any MU honestly)

VS sheik you'll need to focus on spacing and executing your combos/edgeguarding pressure well. you're really going to have to learn how to wavedash out of shield to approach needlespam and camp.

VS Marth outsmarting and outspacing is what will win you the MU. Learning how to buffer roll inputs and getting your tech roll timings down will also help immensely in situations where he tried to chain Fthrow you into Fsmash/Dtilt.

Overall defensively: spacewell, avoid getting grabbed, and dont force aggression
Overall offensively: Always aim for grabs any time they present themselves, space well and zone, execute your combos intelligently and cleanly, and don't force high risk-high reward situations or you'll get read and punished hard by these characters

 

[TFerg]

Roy combos Sheik and Marth very well so it's important to have your punish and tech chase game on point. Both of those characters probably win neutral, but you can bait out their attempts with cc dtilt and punish from there.
Grab the freakin ledge. Learn the timings for edge guarding both of their recoveries.

I personally find Marth to be a pretty even MU in project m. Sheik is possibly in her favor slightly, but not unwinnable by any means.

Never fall into the noob trap of thinking you're better than someone who beats you because you think the MU is hard.

 

[Sundark]

Thanks guys. This and another thread further down have given me some good advice. Our next weekly is coming up this Thursday so hopefully I'll be able to give it another shot.

And yeah, it does feel a bit scrubbish to look at it that way when I see a lot of other people saying it's even or close to even. He plays a very patient and simple game usually, I guess I've just underestimated how effective that can be when his punishes and spacing are super tight.

 

[TFerg]

I mean I just lost to a sheik in gfs of our biweekly here, I get the struggle lol. Can't go hard against her.

 

[SazoonTheBoon]

Roy has a much harder time edge guarding Ike than Marth does, since the safe distance between Ike's Aether and your sword is pretty much the tip. One thing that kind of works is to charge Flare Blade at the edge at a distance that won't get you clipped by Aether. Since Ike's recovery is very predictable and pretty hard to sweetspot, you should be able to charge it for a pretty long time to mitigate the fact that you are hitting them near the tip of your sword. On stage Nair is very useful to stuff Quickdraw approaches. As for DI'ing the grabs, most Ikes will use back throw to fish for a Bair or F-tilt combo. To avoid this DI the opposite direction of where you are facing before the throw.

Just a random guy looking through the ike forums, but don't always di behind when he grabs. He can mix up the di with f throw. Also downthrow is super slow so you can react to it and di accordingly.

 

[CyberZixx]

I did some testing before and some stages Ike`s up b swing won`t hit you even if he sweetspots. On most it goes through the stage corner, but a couple we are safe. Makes it easier to Edgeguard.

 

[Binary Clone]

And if he doesn't sweetspot, you can always poke him with an ftilt.

 

[Smolder]

The big thing you need to learn in the Ike MU though is to dtilt his side-B. By doing this, you can eliminate side-B as an option for approaching. Seeing as Ike is decently reliant on approaching with side-B mixups, he will have a much harder time in neutral if you keep punishing his side-B's with a dtilt --> combo. This isn't to say that he can't get lucky and do a side-B --> grab armor on your dtilt, but for the most part, Roy destroys him in neutral. Play a little bit more reserved, with a heavier emphasis on your neutral game and you'll win most of your matches against him. Edgeguarding him is simple. Binary hit the nail on the head by telling you to ftilt nonsweetspots. Due to Roy's reach and his ability to angle it downwards, Roy's ftilt is a great tool for edgeguarding Ike. Also, if you want to be flashy, you can counter his up-B for a disrespectful edgeguard. If you feel like you are put into a situation where he is super-aggressive and all over you, just focus on stuffing him with a jab, ftilt, DED, or you can even shield --> Wavedash OoS (Or even possibly roll, but use it sparingly) and reset to neutral, because, as I said before, you win neutral. Another option (that I forgot to mention) you can go with is to drop neutral game altogether, and be in his face 100% of the time. Mind you, this option requires very fast thinking and a reliable capacity to read your opponent when they're under pressure. The only reason I bring this option up is because (from what I've seen) Ikes have a hard time dealing with extended pressure. Sure, they have a few OoS options, but if you correctly space your shield pressure and follow their rolls or wavedashing OoS, you will find that Ike crumbles under pressure.

 

[Binary Clone]

I'd say you're mostly on the mark with all of that.

Through some recent experimentation, I've found that it is possible to hit Ike with a strong fsmash to punish a missed sweetspot without trading or getting knocked out of your fsmash animation. You have to be pretty well-spaced, though, and it's impossible when they recover closer inward and the sword throw goes through the stage. But it's incredibly effective on stages like GHZ and pretty much spells doom for Ike if you pull it off.

In my experience, punishing QD with dtilt can be really challenging because all of the mixups he has available - a smart Ike player will just QD SH nair over your dtilts, or even just continuously charge QD a little longer to bait out an early dtilt and punish that with a QD option. It can be surprisingly hard to punish QD on reaction, especially when a good Ike can QD -> wd back -> QD option to bait/mixup/punish.

Counter edgeguard is definitely really flashy, but typically there are better options, and a lot of the time it'll be triggered by the sword throw, hit nothing, and then you'll take a bit of damage from the later hitboxes of the attack.

One of Roy's best tools in neutral in this MU in particular is nair - it's very big, and relatively fast, and will beat out almost all of Ike's QD options.

I think that the aggression option tends to work best because of Ike's limited options for dealing with pressure. He relies a lot on QD and QD mixups, which means burst movement - the less room he has to move in, the more his options drastically deplete.




Also, @ Smolder , what do you think of the spacies MU? I mean, Fox/Falco.

I tend to have a lot of trouble with that MU even though I know that technically I don't think it's supposed to be too bad. But even fairly non-technical Foxes can give me a lot of trouble, and Falco's SHLs destroy me.

 

[CyberZixx]

How do people feel about Roy vs Snake? We combo him for days, but having trouble with the edgeguard and if he gets space he can get things up to make closing distance hard. Plus he can always have a grenade in hand to get you mid combo.

 

[Smolder]

I'd say you're mostly on the mark with all of that.

Through some recent experimentation, I've found that it is possible to hit Ike with a strong fsmash to punish a missed sweetspot without trading or getting knocked out of your fsmash animation. You have to be pretty well-spaced, though, and it's impossible when they recover closer inward and the sword throw goes through the stage. But it's incredibly effective on stages like GHZ and pretty much spells doom for Ike if you pull it off.

In my experience, punishing QD with dtilt can be really challenging because all of the mixups he has available - a smart Ike player will just QD SH nair over your dtilts, or even just continuously charge QD a little longer to bait out an early dtilt and punish that with a QD option. It can be surprisingly hard to punish QD on reaction, especially when a good Ike can QD -> wd back -> QD option to bait/mixup/punish.

Counter edgeguard is definitely really flashy, but typically there are better options, and a lot of the time it'll be triggered by the sword throw, hit nothing, and then you'll take a bit of damage from the later hitboxes of the attack.

One of Roy's best tools in neutral in this MU in particular is nair - it's very big, and relatively fast, and will beat out almost all of Ike's QD options.

I think that the aggression option tends to work best because of Ike's limited options for dealing with pressure. He relies a lot on QD and QD mixups, which means burst movement - the less room he has to move in, the more his options drastically deplete.




Also, @ Smolder , what do you think of the spacies MU? I mean, Fox/Falco.

I tend to have a lot of trouble with that MU even though I know that technically I don't think it's supposed to be too bad. But even fairly non-technical Foxes can give me a lot of trouble, and Falco's SHLs destroy me.

Okay, so this MU is a bit weird. Spacies dominate Roy in neutral, but Roy is also one of the few characters that can reliably kill spacies in a mere two hits. (Both of which are DI dependent, of course) A spacy's lasers make them very annoying to deal with in neutral. When dealing with their lasers, I would say choose a stage where they cannot run around as much, or pick a stage with platforms for a quick escape from the lasers. (If you're really good in the falco MU, you can even powershield his lasers and get a counter punish on him!) Yoshi's Story would be the ideal pick, in my opinion, because fsmash can kill them really early and if you know how to Sethlon, you can force them onto a platform with an up throw, then waveland onto the platform --> regrab --> upthrow x3, then obtain your free fsmash. Most characters have some ugly combos on spacies, but Roy has literal death touches. At early percents, Roy can catch them off guard with a quick dtilt, and if their DI is less than on point, he gets a free fsmash follow up. If their DI is less than on point for the fsmash follow up, they die. This mini combo alone is brutal. Take a few spacy bots to the lab. Once you get used to their combo weight, you can easily see that there are certain combos that you can do that will just utterly destroy them. One of which is dtilt --> falling uair --> (1)grab, or (2)another dtilt --> (1)fthrow or (2)fsmash --> (1)techchase fsmash or (1)even another regrab for more shenanigans. There are some stupid things you can do to a spacy when you get a hold of them. As far as neutral game goes; you will want to focus heavily on your spacing and punish game. If a spacy thinks they can just jump in on you with a nair to shine or drill shine, make them pay with a wavedash back fsmash. Or you could even go for a wavedash back jab --> grab, and then begin an upthrow chain grab or start up some fthrow tech chase shenanigans. Just focus primarily on playing reactionary in neutral, and once you get that first touch, make sure they feel the pain. I know this may sound so obvious, but just watch Sethlon fight some spacies. I can't think of a better Roy for dealing with spacies other than him because of his dated Melee background. There are some recent matches between him and Disafter, I think.

All this information is well and good, but I think I forgot the most important piece of info for fighting spacies: Don't just stand still. I know this may sound like some dumb advice that doesn't even need to be said, but fox and falco love it when their targets aren't moving or are attempting to CC them. CCing Falco is a bad idea, because his dair causes you to stagger, which gives him a free shine follow up, and Fox loves to drill shine those who think they can CC him. In most MU's, I would just say something along the lines of "Just CC dtilt and win", But with this MU, you kind of have to throw that piece of fundamentals out the window. Keep moving. Dash dance a lot. Run up, dtilt, and run away a lot. Once you get that confirmed dtilt, make them regret making that spacy pick. If the Fox is grab-happy and attempts to punish your dtilts with a grab, just dtilt --> fairly instant jab due to dtilts IASA and from the jab, see if you can get a grab, then do Roy stuff to take his stock. If a Falco is dair-happy, let him jump in with his dair so you can wavedash back and dtilt. You and I are both the same. I used to HATE the spacy MU. Dealing with all that pressure is ludicrous if you don't know what tools work best to combat it. I remember the first out-of-state tourney I went to. It was called DI or Die X. First round, I had to fight a Falco player named Pots, and the guy, when called in by the TO, said "Okay, who am I going to be destroying". At first, I thought the guy was just talking some big game, but when we got into the match, he 3 stocked me the first match and 4 stocked me the second. I didn't even have a chance against that pressure. After the match, he told me how to deal with the MU. The guy basically gave me the same advice that I am giving you now. I still hope to get my salty runback with him one day. xD Is there anything specific you'd like to know about the MU that I didn't tell you?

EDIT: Oh, and as for dealing with their shield pressure, let them shine your shield a couple of times and look for an opportunity to roll out. Trying to challenge their shield pressure is foolish. It's actually a bad idea to shield against them most of the time. Just stay as squirmy as possible with your movement tech so you don't have to rely on your shield.

 

[CyberZixx]

That is a great post. I personally have issue vs spacies myself. I love on FD our chaingrab is basically guaranteed death. But no spacies would ever not bad FD vs us.

One reason I am falling at the match up is i'm trying to play it like Marth and get them offstage and try to edgeguard them which I can't really do near as well. From now on I will focus on landing combos into fsmash, or bair.

 

[Azureflames]

That is a great post. I personally have issue vs spacies myself. I love on FD our chaingrab is basically guaranteed death. But no spacies would ever not ban FD vs us.

One reason I am falling at the match up is i'm trying to play it like Marth and get them offstage and try to edgeguard them which I can't really do near as well. From now on I will focus on landing combos into fsmash, or bair.

I'm not sure if it's really a bad thing to try handling the MU a little like Marth. I think it's just important to remember that's not the only method to getting a kill, which for marth is the more typical method to getting the stock. In general getting people off the stage and edgeguarding is probably the main goal of Sethlon in his mental flowchart if he can't get option of a free onstage combo. Getting them offstage is what gets stocks after all, right?

Roy has the freedom to really get your combos out in the stagegame to rack up damage into a finisher DED/Fsmash/Bair/etc.. He can still edgeguard in (somewhat) similar fashion to Marth, but more relying on taking ledge and clipping with Dair (if holding ledge), or pressure zoning or walling them at the edge of the platform with Fairs, counters, Fsmash, flare blade, or jab (jab is a bit overlooked i find for a lot of PM players). The wallout pressure that both marth and roy share is something i find to be more important than the ability to go deeper for a Bair gimp or Dair gimp as marth.

I personally don't mind the Fox MU as much, Falco laser pressure and fighting for neutral is the main issue i have when playing against any of the spacies.

 

[Binary Clone]

I'm not sure if it's really a bad thing to try handling the MU a little like Marth. I think it's just important to remember that's not the only method to getting a kill, which for marth is the more typical method to getting the stock. In general getting people off the stage and edgeguarding is probably the main goal of Sethlon in his mental flowchart if he can't get option of a free onstage combo. Getting them offstage is what gets stocks after all, right?

Roy has the freedom to really get your combos out in the stagegame to rack up damage into a finisher DED/Fsmash/Bair/etc.. He can still edgeguard in (somewhat) similar fashion to Marth, but more relying on taking ledge and clipping with Dair (if holding ledge), or pressure zoning or walling them at the edge of the platform with Fairs, counters, Fsmash, flare blade, or jab (jab is a bit overlooked i find for a lot of PM players). The wallout pressure that both marth and roy share is something i find to be more important than the ability to go deeper for a Bair gimp or Dair gimp as marth.

I personally don't mind the Fox MU as much, Falco laser pressure and fighting for neutral is the main issue i have when playing against any of the spacies.

Well put. Almost any character's main gameplan involves getting the opponent off the stage unless their kill options are primarily off the top.

How do people feel about Roy vs Snake? We combo him for days, but having trouble with the edgeguard and if he gets space he can get things up to make closing distance hard. Plus he can always have a grenade in hand to get you mid combo.

I think this is a bit of an odd matchup, but it's not in Snake's favor. Snake likes killing off the top, and even though Roy is light, he's a fastfaller, which makes those kills happen later. The edgeguard is tough for Roy just because Snake's recovery is pretty good, but it's also extremely slow. If Snake is coming in low, a ledgehop dair can catch him with the semispike hitbox and make it very hard for him to recover, and since Cypher is so slow and predictable, this isn't too difficult (of course, Marth has it way easier, since he can dair spike through Cypher). If Snake recovers high, he has limited options in general - once he's out of Cypher, he can still act, but he's still above you, which is a bad place to be in general. If he fails to sweetspot, you could also ftilt him or dtilt into fsmash pretty reliably.

Part of this MU for any character is understanding Snake's stage control and trying to use it against him, alongside understanding Snake's setups and avoiding the C4 stickies. You'll want to avoid more than usual laggy, punishable attacks like dsmash, since Snake has a projectile that can instantly make a punish like 10 times harder, and a dsmash gives him plenty of time to do so.

Closing distance can be hard, but Roy has really good movement, and on stages with platforms (that being pretty much all of them) the platforms can be a decent way to get to him. He has good stage control and can make approaching tougher, but he isn't very fast and his anti-airs are kind of limited - his usmash is slow and fairly predictable, and his utilt is very effective, but still limited in range. If he's positioned a mine between the two of you, going over and behind him might be a better bet for approaching. Snake's throws are designed around getting you into those mines, but Roy's fthrow and dthrow/bthrow are also pretty good at that, since they have fairly small KBG. Use that to your advantage, and get his mines to work against him.

You also have the advantage of disjoints - keeping Snake at arm's reach means that a lot of his tools become useless. Keeping pressure on him can make his life very difficult. By giving him not enough space that his close-range attacks are ineffective while close enough that your disjoints can touch means that his long-range options also become limited. Though he can grenade pull to try to break combos, remember that the grenade will also hit him, and you have to try to take advantage of that whenever you can.

 

[iwinatu]

As a very aggressive Roy player how does one beat Zelda/Samus. They can camp you out, making it hard to engage and they don't have to approach you. And if you do get in on them, they are too floaty to combo away on. I need help with these matchups.

you don't play aggressively against them. Zelda can just fair or bair you out of any sort of chain you're trying to put together, because it's literally the same length as your sword. it's a very tough match up if the Zelda player is good because you can't combo into any kill moves like you normally would, so having a very solid neutral and edge guarding game will win you it.

for Peach, play Melee Roy vs. a Peach that's worth their salt. you quickly learn how to approach the match up. once you understand how to move around Peach, dodge her turnips, and not fall for silly float canceled fairs and OOS nairs/bairs to dsmash on unsafe approaches, you'll be more than ready for her in PM. because in PM, you'll actually be able to kill her

 

[Azureflames]

you don't play aggressively against them. Zelda can just fair or bair you out of any sort of chain you're trying to put together, because it's literally the same length as your sword. it's a very tough match up if the Zelda player is good because you can't combo into any kill moves like you normally would, so having a very solid neutral and edge guarding game will win you it.

for Peach, play Melee Roy vs. a Peach that's worth their salt. you quickly learn how to approach the match up. once you understand how to move around Peach, dodge her turnips, and not fall for silly float canceled fairs and OOS nairs/bairs to dsmash on unsafe approaches, you'll be more than ready for her in PM. because in PM, you'll actually be able to kill her

Ive actually found and been told by a few samus players that you should actually be very aggressive in the matchup to do well. As roy you need to get on them and stay in the mid-close range. Don't ever let them get out of that range or else you give them opportunity to camp you out. the biggest thing in these MUs are spacing and careful/smart approaching.

As for peach, yeah pretty much. I dont find it a very enjoyable MU since she can live for so long on most stages. understand how her mechanics work so you can make reads and not put yourself in bad positions.

Overall all these MU's rely on understanding the characters and applying very careful spacing and punishes

 

[Fudge9]

I've just recently been bodied at my local monthly by two Captain Falcons. I really struggle dealing with his incredible mobility and ability to easily bait and punish. It felt like if he landed a single hit on me, I'd eat a combo to death. Any advice on this matchup?

 

[Binary Clone]

@ iwinatu and @ Azureflames , Azure is totally right about the Zelda MU.

In my experience, the idea that you should not play aggressively is completely false, and the difficulty comboing is something you really should be able to get past. She is most certainly comboable, you just need to know your floaty combos and pay attention to whet her options are and how good your disjoints are. Her fair and bair are very fast - frames 3 and 5, iirc, but she still needs to get out of hitstun and use them, and you have good aerials for racking up damage and good disjoints. She may die late, but it's still far from impossible to keep pressure on her and keep combos running until you get can get a dsmash, fsmash at higher percents, usmash, or a DED xxx^ hit.

I feel like not playing aggressively against a character with good spacing options and a projectile that can set traps and is somewhat controllable is a big mistake. She will win on stage control if you're not aggressive - you just need to be intelligent about your aggressiveness.

 

[Bag'O'Nuts]

I've just recently been bodied at my local monthly by two Captain Falcons. I really struggle dealing with his incredible mobility and ability to easily bait and punish. It felt like if he landed a single hit on me, I'd eat a combo to death. Any advice on this matchup?

The key to fighting Falcon is patience. Rushing and focusing on all out aggression will get you punished heavily. I'd say one of the best ways is to keep as mobile as him with wavedashing and dashdancing and crouching in order to use the threat of Dtilt to pressure him. Focus on spacing and baiting to gain control of the neutral.

If you whiff a Dtil, quick options such as DED or Jab or Grab are available. Shield grabbing works wonders on Falcon and Nair is good for combo starting at low percents and stage control.

 

[iwinatu]

@ iwinatu and @ Azureflames , Azure is totally right about the Zelda MU.

In my experience, the idea that you should not play aggressively is completely false, and the difficulty comboing is something you really should be able to get past. She is most certainly comboable, you just need to know your floaty combos and pay attention to whet her options are and how good your disjoints are. Her fair and bair are very fast - frames 3 and 5, iirc, but she still needs to get out of hitstun and use them, and you have good aerials for racking up damage and good disjoints. She may die late, but it's still far from impossible to keep pressure on her and keep combos running until you get can get a dsmash, fsmash at higher percents, usmash, or a DED xxx^ hit.

I feel like not playing aggressively against a character with good spacing options and a projectile that can set traps and is somewhat controllable is a big mistake. She will win on stage control if you're not aggressive - you just need to be intelligent about your aggressiveness.

I dunno man, we must have different definitions for what 'being aggressive' is. You can't just go in whenever you feel like it with Roy because he has no good moves on shield. None of his moves that have fast start up have fast wind down, so you can't just spam fairs like Marth can. The only good move on shield Roy has is dtilt, and that's grounded, can't be done in dash dance (without wavedashing down), is fast, but not fast enough for a rush-down strategy. Don't confuse being very good at comboing as 'I should be aggressor the whole game', you'll lose if you do.

You actually have to be extremely patient with Roy more often than not, exactly like how Cpt. Falcon does. Roy has nothing to force an opponent to come to you in the neutral, so you're more often than not dash dancing and wave dashing, just trying your best to bait them to over commit, in the neutral. And I guess this where you mean to 'be aggressive'? Once you see an opening, yes, by all means, go in, because Roy can combo very well. And on a lot of characters, his combos lead to death, so taking that opening can is crucial to winning. You gotta know when to pull the trigger, not 'be aggressive' the whole time.

And then this brings me back to the Zelda answer I gave earlier, and since you brought up Samus, I'll talk about that too. With Zelda, much like against Luigi, if you're over ambitious and try to go for long strings that would work against even characters like Sheik and Ivysaur, you have to hold back just a bit. If you try and just beat them with shear speed and accuracy in tech, it just won't work. The Zelda WILL di away, and when you go for that other fair or uair or whatever you're going for, it won't hit, and you'll take a fair/bair to the face, with a calling card saying "Thanks for doing the spacing for me, enjoy your next stock!". So in this case, not only do you have to patient in the neutral, you have to be patient while comboing too. Going for true combos will get you punished, so waiting and seeing what they do and going in after is better.

I don't know how many Samuses you've played and how good they are @ Azureflames , but being in that range outside of a combo is extremely dangerous

 

[Azureflames]

@ iwinatu - I think you misunderstand what i mean by aggressive then. There is no play in smash that is ONLY defensive, neutral, or aggressive. Every aspect is just a reflection of being in favor of one of those attributes at a given moment. When i said 'be aggressive' i didnt mean mindlessly go in with CCdilt's and Fair shffl >dtilt or whatever you choose to approach with. You're right in the way that roy has to be the one to go in, due to not having a projectile and both samus/zelda being able to tank up and play camp if they choose to. You should never carelessly approach and try to pressure on shield because roy has no real shield pressure, at least not like how fox/falco can pressure shields through shines.There's a difference between straight wreckless-aggression and smart/careful aggression. You have to adjust the way that roy approaches these matchups because you can't just simply dashdance and bait attacks to get grabs or dtilts because they dont play the neutral like other characters. dashdancing is practically pointless in a samus MU, while spacing wavedash>dtilt/ftilt, powershielding, and walking become extremely more useful.

My choice of saying "be aggressive" was too vague i guess.

To me aggression isn't just labeled as "i am hitting my opponent into a combo and am juggling/combo'ing them right now". Aggression in my eyes is labeled as "taking control of the stage", "zoning my opponent into an unfavorable position (or zoning)". You have to fight your way through projectiles by playing safe and careful while still dictating space. Putting them into a place where they can camp less effectively by aggressive zoning and stage control is how to approach the MU (at least for samus). You can still be in the mid-range and command space to dictate the flow of the MU as roy, it's just difficult because you have to make reads and react correctly with powershields, jabs, or Fairs on missiles. Spacing is by far the most important aspect of Roy's fundamentals with this MU.

In terms of the zelda MU, you're right, you cant just ambitiously go for long strings. You have to play more hot/cold. The point i guess i was trying to make is that despite not being right on top of them trying to combo them, you can still zone them in a way to keep them under pressure and not give them room to breathe. If they're stuck on or near the edge it limits their options no matter who they are and that gives you the upper hand against any MU. At this point it just becomes a matter of knowing how to respond to their options to get out of the corner.

Ill reiterate on the whole not giving them room to breathe. Staying at the mid-range gives you options to safely react to their projectiles, while still not being close enough to get hit by their close up threat.

In general lots of people tend to think too hard on "i need to keep hitting my opponent" or "i need to end this combo with a finisher, an Fsmash, another Dtilt, another grab" when the truth is you need to get them in a place less advantageous to where you are and then work from there. A lot of the time if you let off on the right time, they'll throw out their predictable Fsmash or whatever aerial and open themselves back into a position to get grabbed.

A lot of people try to push combos farther than they can go and end up getting punished for it. You're right that you cant continue combos on zelda or luigi, as well as some other MU's that are hard to keep strings going. You just need to get them away from the center of the stage and keep pressuring them and force an edgeguarding situation. Afterall, Roy is amazing at walling out people when they're trying to get back from the edge if you make the correct reads.

 

[Binary Clone]

I'm gonna try not to parrot what Azure has already covered, but I have a few extra bits to contribute.

I dunno man, we must have different definitions for what 'being aggressive' is. You can't just go in whenever you feel like it with Roy because he has no good moves on shield. None of his moves that have fast start up have fast wind down, so you can't just spam fairs like Marth can. The only good move on shield Roy has is dtilt, and that's grounded, can't be done in dash dance (without wavedashing down), is fast, but not fast enough for a rush-down strategy. Don't confuse being very good at comboing as 'I should be aggressor the whole game', you'll lose if you do.

You actually have to be extremely patient with Roy more often than not, exactly like how Cpt. Falcon does. Roy has nothing to force an opponent to come to you in the neutral, so you're more often than not dash dancing and wave dashing, just trying your best to bait them to over commit, in the neutral. And I guess this where you mean to 'be aggressive'? Once you see an opening, yes, by all means, go in, because Roy can combo very well. And on a lot of characters, his combos lead to death, so taking that opening can is crucial to winning. You gotta know when to pull the trigger, not 'be aggressive' the whole time.

And then this brings me back to the Zelda answer I gave earlier, and since you brought up Samus, I'll talk about that too. With Zelda, much like against Luigi, if you're over ambitious and try to go for long strings that would work against even characters like Sheik and Ivysaur, you have to hold back just a bit. If you try and just beat them with shear speed and accuracy in tech, it just won't work. The Zelda WILL di away, and when you go for that other fair or uair or whatever you're going for, it won't hit, and you'll take a fair/bair to the face, with a calling card saying "Thanks for doing the spacing for me, enjoy your next stock!". So in this case, not only do you have to patient in the neutral, you have to be patient while comboing too. Going for true combos will get you punished, so waiting and seeing what they do and going in after is better.

I don't know how many Samuses you've played and how good they are @ Azureflames , but being in that range outside of a combo is extremely dangerous

Wait wait, first off, dtilt is definitely not the only good move Roy has on shield. Properly spaced, a lot of his moves are good or safe on shield, like DED, nair, ftilt, uair... Dtilt is far from alone. And that's ignoring the fact that Roy has one of the best grab games in the game, combined with a great dash dance. He also has great conversions off of grabs on Zelda.

I think you're grossly underestimating the aggressive value of dash dancing and wavedashing, but also overestimating the patience Roy needs in this MU. Dashdance grabs, spaced nairs, and even SH fairs alongside dtilt approaches can be very effective against Zelda. But DD and spaced aerials don't have to hit the opponent to be aggressive. A lot of it is about forcing them to either commit to an option or move back, which limits their options. Since Zelda is great at controlling space with Din's, this is incredibly important in the MU. Being aggressive doesn't necessarily mean going for hits, it means unrelenting pressure, and pressure is granted by position, too.

Going for true combos will get you punished, so waiting and seeing what they do and going in after is better.

This is simply false. The definition of a true combo is that you hit them again before they exit hitstun, which means if you get knocked out of your combo, it was never a true combo in the first place. If you get hit, you overextended. Zelda isn't actually that hard for Roy to combo safely. If you space his aerials properly and use them smartly, you'll be fine. Uair strings in particular give Zelda a ton of trouble, since she has no really good way out of it. She can use her upB to return to the ground, but that's a risky and punishable option as well.

Don't believe me? Watch Sethlon vs. Grime at LTC2. Remember, this is back in 3.02 when Zelda was better at zoning with multiple Din's, so her control of space is even better, and also when her fair and bair had super sweetspots, making them both substantially more powerful an punishing than they are in 3.5 currently.

Immediately you can see how much time he spends approaching, and is constantly pressuring, advancing, and attacking, without giving Grime any room to breathe. The first thing he does is waveland onto the platform, advancing on Zelda. Then he drops through with a fair, commanding space with the hitbox to ensure Zelda won't move forward from the edge. Then he immediately commits to a full approach with a SHFFL nair, which is spaced to hit with just the tip, so even if Grime had shielded, he wouldn't have been able to shield grab and Sethlon would have had his options open.

Throughout the set, you can see that Sethlon is approaching much more than Grime is, and playing much more aggressively, because that's what you should do. If you put Zelda under pressure, you force her to play the game on your terms. Patience is always good, and of course you need to play smartly aggressive, but aggressiveness is still a better option in this MU.

Want evidence in 3.5? Here's Sethlon vs. Oracle in IaB34:

 

[Taytertot]

Im sorry if this has already been discussed, and feel free to tell me to look through the thread if it has, but im curious about the roy sheik mu. i generally have a lot of trouble with sheik and that is definitely due to having poor experience with the mu as well as how sheik plays and what sheik wants to do but itd be cool to get some insight.