Initial impressions

[Informant]

Beep. Hi everyone! I hope you all have been enjoying Ultimate! After having some fun unlocking some of the characters, I finally got to our mechanical boii Robby. I tested him on Classic mode, and EVERY move was absolutely perfect!!! The "balloon" mechanics and air dodging (especially out of UP B) definitely benefit Rob since our biggest weakness was getting comboed! After years of struggling with weak smash attacks, laggy projectiles, and low damage output our wishes have finally been answered. I just wanted to know if anyone has reached Elite Smash yet, and if we can have some Rob dittoes. I would love to keep my skills sharp.

 

[Gotmilk0112]

A few first impressions against level 9 CPUs:

-Gyro ledge traps no longer work, the knockback from gyro hit is way too much.
-Down throw -> up air or up smash is a true combo past 80% on most characters.
-Conversely, down throw cannot combo into anything below 50% or so.
-Nair seems to have been buffed a good deal, way more knockback. I often found that jumping/running off the ledge and nair'ing was the best edgeguard.
-Up B is way slower. At least, it feels really damn slow now. But I haven't played Smash 4 in over a year, so I dunno
-And yeah, directional airdodge is super useful, as ROB's biggest weakness was struggling to land on stage.
-Holy fug, Arm Rotor is amazing now. Does like 20% damage and is twice as fast, also seems to reflect projectiles at any point during the animation (I think), I was doing ledge jump -> arm rotor so much, to great success.

Kinda sad that we can't ledge trap with gyro anymore, but everything else is a big improvement over Smash 4. Maybe we won't be stuck in mid-tier anymore.

 

[Informant]

Lasers charge and shoot faster and stronger. Gyro has a lot more priority! Doesn't dissappear as fast when thrown, and can absorb a lot more enemy hits

 

[CJTHeroofTime]

Idk, I'm pretty pessimistic about ROB. I feel like while ROB does benefit from a lot of the changes, he still has way too much trouble dealing with characters who can get in and pressure your shield. ROB feels pretty helpless OoS, it just feels like unless you land a parry, most of your options are gonna be too slow. Full hop nair OoS seemed the safest (i found shorthop nair would take a lot of hits before nair's hitbox would start), Dsmash if they didn't space properly. Also, personal gripe, but I feel like his bair is sooooo bad (but I also haven't played ROB since brawl, where his bair was amazing).
I feel like ROB is gonna do decently at the start of the meta but is gonna get outclassed very quickly. I think his neutral just doesn't compete with a lot of the others and when you do win neutral, it feels more gimmicky than anything, and that people will catch on eventually.
Look at this GF video. I'm really not sure what WaDi could have done vs Fox. It seems like once zd got past his gimmicks, it was just over for ROB. What do y'all think?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ucse1_OJiI

 

[Jee412]

Idk, I'm pretty pessimistic about ROB. I feel like while ROB does benefit from a lot of the changes, he still has way too much trouble dealing with characters who can get in and pressure your shield. ROB feels pretty helpless OoS, it just feels like unless you land a parry, most of your options are gonna be too slow. Full hop nair OoS seemed the safest (i found shorthop nair would take a lot of hits before nair's hitbox would start), Dsmash if they didn't space properly. Also, personal gripe, but I feel like his bair is sooooo bad (but I also haven't played ROB since brawl, where his bair was amazing).
I feel like ROB is gonna do decently at the start of the meta but is gonna get outclassed very quickly. I think his neutral just doesn't compete with a lot of the others and when you do win neutral, it feels more gimmicky than anything, and that people will catch on eventually.
Look at this GF video. I'm really not sure what WaDi could have done vs Fox. It seems like once zd got past his gimmicks, it was just over for ROB. What do y'all think?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ucse1_OJiI

I feel like WaDi had trouble playing a good defensive play here. He got overwhelmed by the Fox but a lot of time he should have reacted faster then just stand there in shield waiting to get pressure on. I feel like ROB really benefits from a change of pace once in a while. The projectile play is good but if your opponent start to get past this strat, a good thing to do if to become way more aggresive. Also, it seems like WaDi didn't have some good spot dodges when Fox was pressuring him. He became a lot more predictable the more he kept going.

Fox is really hard to play against tbh... It's good to have a good secondary to counter this kind of gameplay too when needed. For exemple I use Ness for opponent with a lot of high speed, shield pressure because his Nair is really good OoS.

I dont think ROB is gonna get out of the meta simply because we are a dead species. Not a lot of pro players get to play against really good ROB's and this is a good thing for us.

 

[Informant]

Wadi can play out of his mind in Smash 4, but here it seems he got too predictable as you guys mentioned. Totally understandable though, not even a week with Smash Ultimate out. A good change in strategy would be to work with the gyro instead of throwing it as soon as you pick it up. Keep your opponent guessing what you will do with the gyro. Also, we have more fuel now than Smash 4 plus a directional air dodge (we also get back some fuel, second jump, and the directional air dodge after grabbing a ledge), so don't be afraid to take the fight to the air and occasionally stall to frustrate your opponent.
I'll have to upload some videos when I attend tourneys. Anyone wanna battle Rob dittos to work on our techniques?

 

[NGW]

Agreeing with a lot of what has already been said. I'd like to reemphasize just how good arm rotor is now. It's been one of my go-to moves as far back as Brawl, and seeing it buffed the way it has in Ultimate it's damn near one of my bnb moves, I get some good KOs out of it. Even outside of more serious play, it is a great crowd control move.