I want to demolish people with Zelda

[Prynne]

How can this be done?

How can this be done WELL?

I have been playing Zelda for about 3 years now, and there's only so much knowledge you can glean from old Cosmo videos.

I've studied these boards backwards and forwards, upside down, left to right, and sometimes underwater.

From what I understand...

1. Zelda's approach blows. Let them come to you. If they camp, get creative. Avoid Nayru's unless they're in the distance.

2. Kicks are god. Well, Zelda's god. Goddess... not important. Space 'em. Hit often. OoS kicks are good.

3. Light Shield. Is. Huge. Use it. Also regular Shield, but if they start grabbing, get creative.

4. Grab is...bad, but throws aren't too shabby. Upthrow can chain, sometimes. B-throw kills, sometimes.

5. Ftilt can set up combos. CAN, being the central word there. Utilt kills faster than Upsmash, which is fun to do on shielding opponents. Fun, being the central word.

6. Dsmash is beautiful. "Get off me" Also kills fast fallers kind of low. Relatively low... you're probably better off with a kick.

7. Dair spikes (meteor), but not all that well. Dtilt spikes, but is wonky to time. Nayru's spikes like a shine.

8. Din's is worthless. Unless you're creative. Uair is not bad for combos, along with Nair, which is very SDI-able.

9. Zelda is mindgame heavy. Deception is key. Violence is not the answer. Counter-violence is.

10. I'm sure there's more, but Zelda is also very fun to use. This is actually my tenth point. This is what I understand most.

So I implore you to correct what's wrong here, add more, or just post whatever. If there's new technology I'm missing, please don't hesitate to throw it out there. I'm sure any newcomer Zeldas will thank you in the long run.

 

[Upke]

Mostly good. You're right in saying she uses a lot of mindgames. Being slow and having only a few potential moves to choose from in most situations, it's usually really easy for someone who knows what their doing to counter/thwart everything you try to do. This means, if you find yourself winning, they either SD'd a whole hell of a lot or you're clearly outplaying them. Point 1 is entirely correct, you pretty much never approach. The only time I would actually approach is if a Fox is laser camping me, with a lead, and they have proved patient enough to not approach me by their own accord if I start ledge camping. At that point, it's already looking kind of grim.

This is something I think Articanus told me. If not, it was a GA top player. Anyways, her grab is still awful, but it's slightly less bad than people give it credit. Dash dancing into pivot grabs can actually work as a decent anti-approach. Also, the reward is quite high if it happens to be a fast faller at low percents (based chaingrabbing).

As for dsmash, yes it's amazing. Don't ever forget that it has invincibility the whole time the hitboxes are out. Great for edgeguarding, and CCing. Familiarise yourself with what approaches can reliably be CC dsmashed. Falcon's nair, Mario's everything besides fair, Pikachu's nair, etc. When something can't be CC'd, don't be afraid to pull a Mario and WD back fsmash. That's something you didn't mention and I think it deserves a shoutout. Fsmash is pretty good. Yes, it's SDIable, but if they're not ready to SDI it, then they usually don't. It's base strength is pretty solid too, so you can use it to get people off stage for edgeguard opportunities.

And dair is a meteor. Almost never worth it, but it can be utilised. If you're willing to go deep for an edgeguard, most of the time (in my opinion) Nayru's is better. It's longer, covers more space, and has invincibility. It also slows you down a little when you use it, which can help with spacing/timing. Din's sucks, yeah. Basically you just use it when you know you won't be able to reach a recovering opponent in time, and you want to try your luck at hitting them and resetting the situation, useful if you manage to knock a spacie under the stage so they have to up-B, limiting options.

Lastly, I want to stress how important movement is, even for Zelda. We all know movement is a key part of the game, but when playing a slow character, I feel you have to be able to use all of your movement options as efficiently as possible. You might be able to ignore things like stickywalks and moonwalks, but I get use out of those. Something like wavelanding though is hella important. You need to make sure your wavelands on platforms are extremely tight, because the longer it takes you to do them, and the slower you move on and off the platform, the more time it gives the opponent to react and avoid what you're going for. Also, some opportunities are only reachable with perfect wavelanding. For example, knocking someone to the other side of DL, perfect wavelanding across the top platform will sometimes give you the opportunity to edgeguard when you otherwise couldn't. Also, there's the whole wavedashing at the end of a dash to gain a little bit more distance, which becomes necessary often for a slow character like Zelda.

That's about all I have to say.

PS: Shield drop upair is a pretty decent option. I suggest everyone at least tries it out.


EDIT: Oh, I forgot. Dash attack is ****ing godlike. I doubt I have to explain why, it's like Peach's. Also, her air dodge is amazing. It's a legitimate movement option, recovery option, and of course, a dodge option.

EDIT 2: The Electric Bugaloo: Don't forget that Zelda's lightning kicks have two sweetspots each. So good. Know the spacing of both.

EDIT THREE: Sorry, I was practising my Zelda after I wrote this which prompted me to remember a lot of things. Farore's stalling on the ledge is pretty sweet. It's the same inputs as firestalling with spacies. If you do it right, it's usually pretty hard for them to knock you out of it, most will try to snatch the ledge from you. Be cognizant of that and retreat back on the stage as they jump/wavedash off. A lot of the time, if they try to hit you out of it, they get snagged by her startup hitbox, which can actually set up depending on DI. If they unfortunately (for them) DI out, you can sometimes space a ledgehop sweetspot bair. Otherwise, it gives you an opportunity to make it back on the stage.

 

[Prynne]

You're a lifesaver! I really appreciate you taking the time to write all of this out, it's a huge eye opener and I didn't know 80% (ok, like 95%) of this. It'll definitely remove my desire to switch to Sheik when things get tough. I'll put this in a word document and hang onto it. Just out of curiosity, do you tourney around where you are?

 

[Upke]

Not often. I live 4 hours away from any real scene and don't have a car on top of that. I did learn a lot from playing online though, and my last tournament was Cute Cats 7 last weekend at which I got 9th. And I love seeing people post in the Zeldaboards and am more than happy to respond with what I know.

 

[Prynne]

It felt like a ghost town, so I figured I'd come hang out for a bit. And you've literally given me all the information I need. Thanks again!

 

[Thor]

Also, her air dodge is amazing. It's a legitimate movement option, recovery option, and of course, a dodge option.

The airdodge is actually pretty bad on Zelda unfortunately - http://smashboards.com/threads/zelda-hitboxes-and-frame-data.319598/ indicates that it has 15 frames of invulnerability and 30 frames of lag, contrasted with (as an example), http://smashboards.com/threads/falco-hitboxes-and-frame-data.300397/ indicates that Falco has 25 frames of invulnerability and 20 frames of lag (plus 4 frame startup on each character).

Admittedly, it's good for dodging stuff that you know you have no other options/hitbox will be on you, not a fake, and airdodges are surprisingly good at getting on-stage (instead of possibly getting knocked out of Farore's Wind) (or putting you in position so that a dair hits you onstage, not offstage and possibly to a KO), but it's sadly a bad airdodge framewise.

 

[Upke]

The frames aren't what make it good. It's the fact that it covers a large distance and you get to fastfall out of it quicker than most characters. It's similar if not identical to Peach's airdodge.

 

[Prynne]

It works as a third jump sometimes. I didn't know it had other movement options though. Nor did I realize it could be fast fallen so well.

And 9th place is really great! With any character, not specifically Zelda. Especially in melee.

 

[Upke]

Yeah, like earlier today, I double jumped over the rock transformation on PS, but air dodging over the mountain towards the left and fastfalling it was faster than landing/wavelanding on top. Just simple things like that.

 

[gijn]

I'd have to agree that the air dodge is usable. Phasing through attacks most of the time its better than spotdodging keeping some form of movement so you don't get pinned down. Shield options as well again make sure you got them down + powershielding. I wouldn't abuse the lightshield though, medium shielding is a better option in most cases as you can get greater distance between yourself and opponent from asdi so you can do OoS options. keep LS for near drop offs and for wavedash OoS games. In another thread I posted some other tips and i'll post some that haven't been mentioned.

1. Chained Pivot Jab- people usually seem to step in after a jab to get back on top of zelda so use that fault to your advantage by pivot jabbing. the space gained from the pivot should keep you out of range and if you practice the timing you can keep opponents back by doing 2 or 3 pivot jabs in a row and change their approach.

2. Reverse Naryu's Love out of dash cancelled jump- for example if you downthrow and tech chase you can jump reverse Naryu's on top of their get up attack or tech. The invincibility frames protect yourself and maintains pressure on the opponent. The Reverse momentum also gives the chance for the hitboxes of Naryu's love to sweetspot and push them further away. From facing backwards and the additional space gained from the reverse momentum you can bair or moonwalk bair. If you misread the tech, pulled out your Naryu's and they went the opposite direction you can dash attack forwards towards the centre of the stage or shield so you can Upsmash OoS aftewards.

3. Short Wavedash '5 o'clock' f-tilt- you should be perfect WD all of the time but for a mix up can do a short WD and do a '5 o'clock' f-tilt. it's one of zelda's moves that can actually clank with opponents so it's pretty safe to spam and in the WD it should give you enough space to get it out.

I've been playing Zelda in UK tourneys last 3 months still haven't got top 10 at an event yet but getting there was joint 17th in a 60/70 man that Armada won recently (was TO'ing as well no johns ;p). 1 more win for joint 9th


EDIT: has anyone got any joy from dtilt on platform if they are approaching or attacking from below? I tested it out other day but haven't assessed it too much yet

 

[Thor]

Airdodge is definitely usable, just... you've gotta be better at timing it than with like Falco or Marth, unfortunately. But I agree it's often a better option than up+b for recovering, and the bad frame data invincibility-wise does give it other useful properties (like earlier fastfall). It's just unfortunately long enough endlag that someone like Falco could try to dair you, miss, L-cancel, and then shine you or something silly if they're fast enough (if they dair close to ground and you try to airdodge in, they have say 12 frames of lag while your early AD is about probably 20 frames of lag after the dair misses and 11 after it's L-cancelled, so they have at least enough time to try to shine you out of your fall state, which sux). But that's PPMD-like, so it's not really something to worry about I suppose.

 

[Prynne]

And this is why Zelda blows. But the point is that it's one of her better tools, I think, not that it's the best in the game, or that it is in any way a top tier option. You just have to make it top tier. This is good though, to know what not to do, so you're helping me out either way!

 

[Upke]

EDIT: has anyone got any joy from dtilt on platform if they are approaching or attacking from below? I tested it out other day but haven't assessed it too much yet

I can't say I've ever tried that. I usually just medium shield and shield drop upair/rising nair/etc. depending on the specific situation.

 

[Prynne]

@ gijn adding your post to my "Zelda Bible" along with Upke's post. You're the best!

 

[The Prince: SDJ]

Triangle jumping with zelda is amazing. Triangle jumping is a modified form of wave dashing where you let some of the invincibility frames show as you chose a more diaganol angle, adding characters with long air dodges, such as zelda

 

[ChivalRuse]

Zelda has very few effective tools. She is a spacing heavy character who has trouble with evasion, rushdown, and grab combo characters. Falcon and Sheik are her worst matchups for this reason (Sheik is not so much for rushdown, but she can somewhat recklessly spam f-tilt on you which is annoying). Fox, Falco, and Young Link are also rough.

Basically being good with her comes down to using her best tools to their full potential. Spacing every kick perfectly is crucial. Knowing when to dash attack and grab comes down to judgment calls/educated guesses based on reading movement and the mindset of your opponent. Smash attacks are gimmicky but decently useable (especially upsmash out of shield and dsmash edgeguards).

Zelda's dash is rather terrible, but you need to master the art of ground game too. Just jumping and kicking isn't enough to beat anyone decently good at this game, as they will just punish you repeatedly for whiffed kicks. You have to one-up their movement. Running shields into wavedash out of shield and kick out of shield works wonders.

Basically, you have to be very solid at this game in general before Zelda can get you any success.

Cosmo and TheLake are the players to watch over and over again if you want to get good with this character.