Meta Link's Metagame Thread (Informative Quotes Can Be Found in the OP)

[Fox Is Openly Deceptive]

There's a jab cancel Pac Man can do that only works on Mewtwo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJXtZv0YZlc
Looking at Link's jab 2 frame data he should be able to pull this off on Mewtwo too.

This doesn't even work for Pac-Man. Mewtwo just needs to DJ airododge (he has until frame 6 of his DJ to input the airdodge, and that's assuming that Pac does the Jab cancel Jab frame perfectly) or just SDI then DJ away. The vid is misleading on a few points.
In any case, Pac's Jabs are different to ours, e.g. they both have set knockback on their hitboxes.

 

[Nd_KakaKhakis]

Room for Improvement. Link meta in March 2017


Hey hey. So I’m a pretty good to really good (depending on who you ask) Link player Khakis. Recently (due to a multitude of injuries) I’ve had an incredible amount of time on my hands and no ability to play smash myself. So I spent a lot of time over the past couple of days carefully watching top link play and the purpose of this post is to point out common problems, propose ideas for growth and throw common losing plays and habits into the faces of us Link players with the hope of fixing these issues.


Before we get to that let's look at the positives. We have some pretty damn good Link players out there who have gotten some notable wins. The hallmark of top Link play right now is a very mobile style that controls the entire screen well. It’s not always with projectiles and it’s not always with the sword. Top Link players select their buttons more carefully than any other smash 4 main. And on top of that picking a good option and making it safe is typically very demanding execution-wise (compared to the rest of the cast). Being a good link requires doing tight OOS punishes with Upsmash and Up-b that can lose you whole games if you miss. It requires playing comfortably and excellently from ledge as well.


So I’m going to list out the top problems in my opinion. My philosophy is that problems in smash are simple. A thousand thoughts rush through the brain during the game but in-post pointing out problems is a pretty simple task. Every point listed out here is a direct reason why top link players are getting opened up or dying outright. I could also have chosen to focus on conversions but that stuff is subjective. Holes in play however can be talked about more objectively.


I’ve gained a lot of respect for the good Link players out there (a respect just 6 months ago that I did not have) and that’s pretty much the only reason why I’d care to study up and write something about it. And as a competitor I know it’s very hard to be honest with yourself about every little thing so at least try and really see if you’re guilty of some of these problems.


Jab3 on shield.


It’s so easy to look at something like jabbing and gloss over it. “Surely I know how to press the A button properly. I don’t need to work on my jabs.” Jabbing properly mid match is frankly however one of the toughest things to do in smash 4. Getting Jab 2 on shield is pretty amazing. It has the quickest FAF of any move in Link’s kit. It can lead into more shield pressure or deadly mixups. It’s generally a great way to start up offense.

Getting jab3 on shield though… it sucks. Even a day 1 player could punish you for it. So it follows that one of the best players in the world will take you for a ride that will probably end your stock. Even the best Links in the world lose entire tournament games because they jab3 by mistake on a shield. All momentum is lost.

So. How can this be avoided? Some ways Links avoid this is jabbing more slowly so they can avoid that third button press on accident. This can lead to opponents escaping the jab combo though by DI down shield or jumping out. Another option is holding A rather than inputting multiple presses as a way to make sure your jabs come out with a consistent timing every time. The disadvantage of this however is it’s not the fastest timing (much slower than just mashing the button) so it leaves room to escape similar to pressing the button slowly on purpose.

The jab3 on shield can also come out when people are trying to jab cancel into other options. There’s a little window after jab 2 where even if you input a tilt jab 3 comes out anyway. No matter what option picked as long as it’s an A-button-mapped-option will lead into jab 3. This jab buffering error can be avoided by inputting *something else* between jab 2 and whatever option you’re trying to do. Jab12 into jump will never yield the dreaded jab3 on shield. Jab12 into perfect pivot is a good way to prevent the jab3 from coming out while staying on the ground.

It’s a simple flaw to point out but getting jab 3 on shield maybe 1 in 10 or even 1 in 100 games is unacceptable. Considering the incredible power of jab2 as a pressure tool, the room for error for jab3 on shield should be zero. This is in my viewing experience one of the most frequent and most costly errors top Link players make.


Missed Autocancel Dairs


The autocancel dair on landing for Link mains is like Mac N Cheese. Its comfort food really. You learn it and it catches people by surprise. Its reliable, its safe, it can get you kills in clutch moments. But if you mindlessly reach for the mac n cheese every day, that **** adds up and isn’t good for you. This tech renders your landings predictable and even the best links in the world are not so great at auto-canceling it every time. One dair into the ground or into a platform can cost you your whole stock. Though similar to cloud dair, the autocancel timing is remarkably stricter. Some heights you’ll never get the autocancel but the temptation to do it anyway overrides your better judgment. There’s fastfalling to consider and hitlag to consider and bouncing to consider and other variables.

But the result is very binary and clear. If your sword touches the ground and you land with lag, you’re probably getting punished and losing the match. If it autocancels, you’re probably setting up something sick or at least landing safely which is a beautiful thing in its own right.


So.How can this be avoided?

Honestly I struggle with this myself. I guess the proper mindset would be to only pick dair in familiar situations where you know you’ll get the autocancel. But even top cloud players miss their dair autocancels in tournament. It’s not so easy a problem to solve but one that needs to be addressed to secure more W’s for Link.



Predictable ledge jump aerial (bombless). Predictable ledge jump bomb toss down into aerial


Drop from ledge fair and drop from ledge zair. They are dope. Link can get such a big momentum swing from ledge by successfully landing these. BUT all it needs to do is be read once and you can die at literally any percent. Every good link is guilty of going for this and getting read and dying pitifully early.


I think a big part of this is accepting that link is going to spend more time at the ledge than a lot of characters. The more times you have to actually grab ledge, the more at risk you are of getting this option read. It follows from probability that you are more likely to repeat a ledge option and get read if you’re at the ledge more times in a match/set. It has to be seen that this specific risk is not worth it and twice in a match or a set may in fact be too many times in high level smash 4.


The exact same thing goes for ledge jump bomb toss down into nair or fair. Its practically the same problem stemming from the same mindset but it’s the option chosen when bomb is in hand at ledge. You keep your jump at least ha. The Ledge jump bomb toss down is typically followed up with a nair or other aerial done out of panic.




And now I’ll go through the rest of the list a bit more quickly. These are the three main problems I see in top link play and the resolving of these errors are probably the most pertinent issues at hand to improving the character’s results as a whole.


Retreating into jump b-reverse arrow

The risk reward is incredibly skewed. It’s cute and seems harmless but at the end of the day you’re just jumping into them with a charged arrow (which you’d never do if there wasn’t fancy tech involved)


Turnaround Punishes (jab and grab in particular)

Everyone in the whole smash world is bad at these but getting a link grab the wrong way just looks and feels bad


Full hop retreating bomb pull

Link’s often fail to account for their opponent’s ground speed in the heat of the moment and think they can pull bombs in this way safely when really it costs them all of the stage and gets them hit (often killed)


Jump Cancel Upsmash by mistake

Trying to do that instant rising up-air? You’re gonna get this upsmash by mistake sometimes. Guess what it’s literally gonna lose you matches. Claw or Trigger Jump or practice your timing a whole lot to solve the problem


Slow reactions on OOS Upsmash and Up-b

Without tap jump this tech is kind of hard. But these are crucial defensive options that have 1,000 years of endlag if you mess up. So don’t mess them up


Getting popped up to short hop height, trying to land with double jump dair

Say you get jab123’d by like pit or charizard at low %. Don’t just jump and dair to land safely. If this gets read you can be stranded offstage jumpless. It’s a lazy autopilot option (see the dair write-up above) Just retreat to ledge or use your jump on reaction in a more textbook fashion. This is one of the most egregious examples of picking the comfort landing dair


Mashing nair and fair and bair on landing

These moves get perfect shielded with Alarming Frequency. Plus lots of characters when below you can just beat them outright with uptilts and smashes and aerials. No point taking free damage. Your challenge nair won’t even net much if they are at low % (before nair leads to a Knockdown). Just maximize your horizontal drift away from the opponent or retreat to ledge


Low % Air-to-Air Nair

If your opponent doesn’t have percent on them and you get a weak hit you’re probably eating a punish you could have avoided by not pressing any buttons (or a better button) in this situation


Uptilt (on hit) into Uptilt

At low %'s uptilt will pop your opponent up into a range where you can uptilt them again. Second up tilt is typically an inferior pressure option to waiting. There are good times where you can force a DJ with the second uptilt and still be frame positive enough to pressure but those aside if you see yourself doing a second uptilt after the first hits you are probably not maximizing your situation.


Last one:

If your opponent is at upthrow kill percent. You should just hang back and wait for them to hang themselves. Too often good links will approach when you should be comfortable chilling in these situations. Throwing projectiles and safe moves (even if it takes 2 or 3 minutes) can net you that kill throw you need and it’s pretty stress free (cuz so many other moves will kill at this % too).


These are my thoughts and findings. Hope all you links out there found this interesting.

~Khakis

 

[Rizen]

I saw a Mega Man player do this with metal blade. What do you guys think about backwards SH bomb Z drop off the ledge when the opponent's hanging there? It has good option coverage on reaction and can potentially lead to a reverse Fair or Usmash.

 

[Fox Is Openly Deceptive]

The SCID ('Skid Cancelled Item Drop').

@Snasen recently told me about this neat way to z-drop bombs without the Zair coming out, I labbed it just then and I think it has amazing potential.

Essentially you just want to pull a bomb, run towards the edge of the stage/platform, return the joystick to neutral so that you enter a skid animation, then hit the grab button as early as frame 7 of the skid (frame 6 will give you a dash throw) and then hit forwards again as late as frame 15 (if you are too late Link will do a standing throw on frame 15). Link will then slide off the edge and z-drop the bomb without using Zair.

Very important to note! There are two kinds of skid animations depending on how long you run for before you return the joystick to neutral to start the skid. If you return the joystick to neutral between frames 14 to 25 (12 frames), 46 to 58 (13 frames), or 80 to 92 (13 frames) of the run animation, you will drop the bomb on the edge of the stage/platform because this skid animation has Link hold the bomb behind him.. Otherwise, if you return the joystick to neutral between frames 26 to 45 (20 frames), 59 to 79 (21 frames), or 93 to 112 (20 frames), you will drop the bomb off the edge of the stage/platform because Link holds the bomb out in front during this skid. With experience you will know roughly how far away you need to be, and in practice you will only be using the 14 to 25 and 26 to 45 frames windows. On the BF platforms it's difficult to find enough space to get into the 26 to 45 frame window, so you'll need to run the full length of the platform and delay the skid as long as possible (at which point you would be returning the joystick between frames 26 and 27; try to return the joystick to neutral on frame 28 and you'll do a flip off the edge on frame 27). Use this rough measurement to give you an idea of what spacing is required elsewhere.

Unfortunately the SCID is made more difficult on the Smashville platform when it is moving in the opposite direction of your run/skid. The faster it is moving, the less time you have to hit forwards to slip off, and at its fastest this means you have to hit forwards by frame 9 at the latest. If you are too late, Link won't slip off for the remainder of the skid and will then do a standing throw on frame 15.

Note also that you can feel free to hold the grab button, i.e. no need to let go of it immediately, and you should also hold forwards on the joystick just in case you still need to skid/slide over to the absolute edge of the stage/platform, at which point it will automatically z-drop the bomb and slide you off.

So you wanna seamlessly run off stage and Nair/Fair then Up-B out into the edge of the blast zone only to be saved from dying by the bomb blast? you can, just try to get the late skid once you've run far enough to make it easier to re-grab the bomb with the aerial, and be quick about inputting that aerial. How about laglessly dropping bombs as you maneuver around on the tri-platforms? go for it, and then depending on whether you want the bomb resting on the platform or raining down, you'll want to adjust your skid timing accordingly.

Stryker made a video to help you understand https://youtu.be/bo69AjRYatc

 

[Lord Renning]

You can zairlessly drop a bomb during a ledge grab. Simply tap z after pressing forward and down, and Link will z-drop the bomb while grabbing the ledge.

The control stick must be in neutral when you tap z for this to work, but that shouldn't be a problem for you.

In practice, you will probably aim to start to tapping z after pressing forward, but before pressing down, as the control stick passes through neutral, so the z-input will complete as the control stick comes back up to neutral from your fast fall.

Simple.

 

[Fox Is Openly Deceptive]

Just to clarify, the bomb is actually being z-dropped on the first frame of the ledge grab itself. In order to do this, in this particular setup, you need to input the grab with the joystick in neutral on the frame following having the joystick still held down. In other words, it's a one frame input made practically possible by how quick the overall input is. If you're doing this and you get a d-throw, you're hitting the grab button too early. Better to aim to hit it slightly too late and just grab the ledge safely.

 

[VuraLoL]

An excerpt from Discord.

Regarding my Info teased a few hours ago: Ledgetrapping with ftilt and conditioning. - When u regularly ftilt at the ledge as your main ledgetrap tool (which is kinda meh since Link has better options to trap his oponnents; I still see myself ftilting like a Monkey a lot because it has no long time-cosuming setup and relies on timing) your oponnent will try to either A) Avoid the ledge situation with a defensive option or a get up that resets neutral OR B) He will try to punish you for ftilting e.g. getup attack/ ledgedrop aerial. I found out that if you see your oponnent taking a getup option and Buffer an Up-B after the filt, the Up-b will hit no matter what options the oponnent takes. So u can adapt to your oponnent while he tries to adapt; in this case punish/avoid the traps. This technically becomes a more committing "Ftilt" since the main goal of hitting your oponnent offstage again or killing him remains the same. What's so great about this is that it has a specific timing that necessarily does not have to be learned since the timing is given by buffering the moves together, by ftilt > buffered up-b. This also can be pseudo-safe because of the multiple hitboxes Spin Ataack has. The following actions occur if Spin Attacks lingering hitboxes hit: Neutral getup: The enemy is pushed offstage in a semi-spike angle which is weak af and doesn't last for long. They won't be able to punish us tho. Getup attack: They will either hit us or we get them on startup Jump: We either hit them or they jump away. Expect a punish. Roll: We hit them ( % dependant, the higher the % the safe Spin Attack) they roll away. They may punish. Most of the time we are postive if any hitbox hits. A miss results in a punish ofc.


Offstage game and "gimps" - As you all know the inbetween hits of ASA stuffs aerial momentum (someone can Link @Kintuse 's Gif or ASA edgeguarding a Shulk). Bair1 has some similar properties. If we hit them with Bair 1 while we are falling, Bair2 will miss. You can Fast Fall to make Bair 2 miss reliabler (can I say this? reliablier? ), but it has some drawbacks. The moment they are hit they are pretty much stuck in place, because of set knockback and also their momentum is stuffed. If you are fast enough now u can reverse upb edgeguard them or even do a Downair, Upair aka anything u want really. I still recommend doing a reverse Spin Attack sice it's fast, the hitboxes

well together and ofc it can kill pretty early. The main goal of this strategy is to catch pushing forward enemies e.g. they drift in and disrespect our backwards dangerzone. This is ofc no only limited to falling Bair1 but also rising Bair1. Granted u are going to use falling Bair1 into reverse upb/or imagination than rising (since rising Bair 1 has u above your oponnent to then edgeguard them which is quite difficult to do actually due to bad vertical recovery from Link) Bair1. You could consider it a pseudo confirm into stuff. The drawback of this "Tech" or tactic is actually pretty limited. If you oponnent sees this coming (which in most cases they won't since they expect the second Bair or they don't expect any followup) they can airdodge but that doesn't change anything greatly since we can then simply land on the stage or grab ledge and then have a ledgeguard situation since the enemy has to recover low. If you do this "high" u might get punished upon landing which sucks.

 

[-BlueSharpie-]

I've always heard that Link has a sort-of blind spot behind him. He has up-b and bair OOS, which are both pretty good. My question is this: if you have the opponent on the ground behind you, how useful is a perfect pivot jab? Does anyone actually go for that? Is it worth trying? I am just starting to get the hang of doing perfect pivots, and it's fun, but I don't know how useful it is for Link.

 

[VuraLoL]

Think about it.

Shielddrop 7 frames
Perfefct Pivot 2 frames (If u ae fast af)
Jab startup 7

So when frame perfect u have a frame 16 OoS Option. Obviously ****.

The only options link has OoS to rach behind him are:
Upb OoS Frame 8
Upsmash Will hit behind u around frame 11/12
SH bair Frame 13
Bomb throw back frame 9.

These are your options.

Perfect pivots have uses it's necessarily not bad with link.

 

[Rizen]

I've always heard that Link has a sort-of blind spot behind him. He has up-b and bair OOS, which are both pretty good. My question is this: if you have the opponent on the ground behind you, how useful is a perfect pivot jab? Does anyone actually go for that? Is it worth trying? I am just starting to get the hang of doing perfect pivots, and it's fun, but I don't know how useful it is for Link.

Link doesn't struggle with characters behind him. Utilt attacks front to back frame 8-12, Usmash 10, and upB (ground) 8 all hit significantly behind Link. Utilt being the safest. It's more that his fastest OoS option is frame 8.
Link generally does well with pivots due to his long disjoint and relative shield safety. Pivots OoS are too slow as VuraLol pointed out.

 

[-BlueSharpie-]

Yeah, for an attack OoS, you would definitely want to go for something faster. I was more asking about using perfect pivot jab in general, not so much OoS. Sorry, I rushed my original post and didn't phrase it very well. (Thanks for your replies though. I think I got my answer from what you guys said, regardless.)

My train of thought was something like this: (just one example)
If the opponent rolls behind me, I could use u-tilt, SH bair, up-b, or reverse bomb throw to easily cover the roll. And most of those have good follow-ups as well, depending on the percentage, etc. But I could also use perfect pivot jab, and then use a jab-cancel mixup to possibly land a better combo or string than those other options would give me.
...right?
I guess I was just trying to compare PP jab to Link's other options for when the opponent is behind him, in terms of usefulness and follow-ups.

Anyway, thanks for your thoughts.

 

[link7]

Fox Is Openly Deceptive Here's something I posted about a month earlier. A weird grab happens at the 45 second mark.

Any ideas?

 

[Fox Is Openly Deceptive]

Fox Is Openly Deceptive Here's something I posted about a month earlier. A weird grab happens at the 45 second mark.

Any ideas?

The greninja spotdodged the grab at first, the grab hitbox continued to extend, and it just barely caught greninja once it had already almost gone past as he was exiting his invulnerability frames (can happen to other characters too obviously). The tether grab grabbed and tried to readjust to make it all look right, so greninja was teleported back slightly to make it look like he got grabbed from in front. Slightly further back is off-stage so greninja was forced to fall off-stage when he was grabbed, which is fine because we are allowed to grab people in the air. During the reel-in the stage itself got in the way by not allowing greninja to move along with the tether; this screwed up the animation slightly and greninja had to be teleported over to you again as soon as he would have otherwise been in your hands. And there we have it.

 

[Natmax]

Arrow posted this in the discord: https://gfycat.com/PerkyGrotesqueBarnowl

Basically just SHUFF with fair instead. Has anyone looked into when/who we can do this on? I ask mostly because SHUFF doesn't guaranteed kill if they don't air dodge, whereas at least on ledge with fair they are dead no matter what they do.

 

[Fox Is Openly Deceptive]

Arrow posted this in the discord: https://gfycat.com/PerkyGrotesqueBarnowl

Basically just SHUFF with fair instead. Has anyone looked into when/who we can do this on? I ask mostly because SHUFF doesn't guaranteed kill if they don't air dodge, whereas at least on ledge with fair they are dead no matter what they do.

This exact setup, FH Fair FF to grounded Up-B, was discussed by me at some length some time ago before the SHUFF. The SHUFF was specifically developed to be a better and more flexible version of this original idea that would be guaranteed on more characters. (See the first post of the meta, first spoiler, then further down in my quoted posts.)

 

[link7]

The greninja spotdodged the grab at first, the grab hitbox continued to extend, and it just barely caught greninja once it had already almost gone past as he was exiting his invulnerability frames (can happen to other characters too obviously). The tether grab grabbed and tried to readjust to make it all look right, so greninja was teleported back slightly to make it look like he got grabbed from in front. Slightly further back is off-stage so greninja was forced to fall off-stage when he was grabbed, which is fine because we are allowed to grab people in the air. During the reel-in the stage itself got in the way by not allowing greninja to move along with the tether; this screwed up the animation slightly and greninja had to be teleported over to you again as soon as he would have otherwise been in your hands. And there we have it.

Sorry it took me forever to get to this post. The reason why I brought the grab to you was because my friend could have sworn he didn't airdodge, and went for the ledge intentionally. I just showed him the post though, and he agrees that what you said is most likely what happened. Thanks Foxy!

 

[Fox Is Openly Deceptive]

lol. 'most likely'. Ftr I was able to recreate it perfectly as seen in the video.

 

[Stryker95]

I received some free time and got this finished if anyone wants it. It's an Excel Google Doc you can get on your phone that doesn't require internet with data that may be helpful to look over before a match. There's more I would like to add if I get the time. (One of these days I may actually be able to use this, can't wait for January.)

Nohman has a Word doc that also has similar information on it if that suits your fancy, but I don't know if it's completed yet with all info/ updated info/ credits/ sources etc.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/10HbxduKG0AL5xbbCzl3DAkG_TsrA-QCwVlNS_rKAYmo/edit?usp=sharing

 

[Rizen]

Here's a useful hitbubble viewer:
https://struz.github.io/smash-move-viewer/#/v1/link/AttackDash
Click the 'hitbox active' button otherwise it loads forever.