And that simply isn't the case; Sheik with mediocre standards would still be able to zone people out very easily, will still get out of many unfavorable positions for free, would be able to recover from practically everything with little ability to edgeguard her, and would have two very effective KO moves and a move to setup KOs. You take the specials away, and Sheik becomes Brawl Sonic without recovery or the ability to get out of bad situations; sure she'll move fast and be able to hit you a lot, but she's never killing you, is taking a ton of damage when she does get hit, and is dying early and often.
If Shiek is a positive example of specials propelling a character, how many other high tiers are an example of this? (where their specials are technically more valuable long-term?) Would specials Shiek actually be any better than a pseudo-Brawl Sonic? Simply having good KO moves and decent zoning isn't high-tier material if her entire standard moveset is nerfed to hell, so then it'd be a question of which between the two is better, and how to apply that against the rest of the cast with their standard strong versus special strong characters.
My conclusion was that the more decent options available on a standard set would be more useful to a good chunk of the cast than those cast members having greatly nerfed standards. But, to be fair, across-the-board nerfs in this hypothetical debate are vague. Which is probably why we haven't gone anywhere. We may have totally different concepts of how hard/lightly a character's sets are buffed/nerfed.
Melee Falcon's non-special stuff are about as good as you can get. What separates him from Fox and Falco, who have strong standards and even worse "combo bait" problems? His specials leave him with no real additional options while they get the single most broken move in the game that can do so much and the game's best projectiles.
"but things totally fall apart off-stage because he has no projectiles and a very poor defense"
Which exist because of his bad special moves. "That's just his playstyle!" isn't the thing holding Falcon back, its his overall options being much less limited than the competition, on account of those specials failing to provide.
His playstyle counts for a lot unless you're taking this hypothetical into directions where a character gets moves that in no way suit their established playstyle. When I go for hypotheticals with Zelda getting decent Bairs and Uairs, I'm still suggesting this on the basis of improving her options as a defensive character.
You've brought nothing to the table on how Falcon is somehow limited by specials, in spite of the fact that no specials characteristic to his in-your-face and momentum-based playstyle could really make him on the level of Fox or Falco. The most new specials would do is give him more options. But he already has a lot of options. I mean, Raptor Boost is already sometimes used as a mixup, and that's probably the quality of specials I'd expect if Punch and Kick were made to be different.
At the end of the day, unless you fundamentally changed his entire playstyle, you wouldn't be able to jump him 5-6 spots on the tier list with a couple of decent specials on par with his standards and a better recovery. He'd be better, but he wouldn't be carried by it.
I seen plenty of high level Brawl and I played high level ICs; their ability to strongly zone people out with their much better Ice Shots and Blizzards is what really made them broken. They no longer had to chase, go fishing for grabs, and prayed Nana didn't get separated in the process; they could now just lay back and force their opponents to act through an ice wall, which made them a lot easier to grab. Both accomplished far more than a pretty good uair did.
I watched a 40 minute match between Vinnie and Zero from about a year ago and I can't really say I saw Ice Shot used much at all. I can at least say that Blizzard was part of why Zero had to be careful when approaching, but aerials, namely up air, is a lot of what Vinnie threw out when Meta Knight made (largely aerial) approaches.
His aerial play seemed every bit as integral to that top level play as blizzard was, and Icies chaingrabs and Brawl being a broken mess held it all together.
What? Smash 4 is the most ground-based Smash yet, mostly everyone stays grounded if they're not someone like Puff, Yoshi, and Wario, or someone zoning out with projectiles during neutral.
Point taken - but Zelda has poor ground speed. A better point is that she has bad escape tools, thus, less options. Din's Fire doesn't repair this.
And those tools become a lot more capable when your opponent is the one approaching you, instead of you having to chase them around. What concept of that is so hard to understand?
Lightning Kick's lag is not so bad that it'll be invariably punished regardless of how it's used. A missed move does not necessarily equal a punish. And you're the one pressuring your opponent? Hey it turns out riskier moves become better as your opponent is in a less able position to retaliate a whiff and you're more in control of the flow of the match.
Duuuude, the reason Zelda is currently so easy to approach is because her current projectiles are absolutely terrible. Are you going to completely count out how projectiles, unless they're something like Fox Blaster that deal no hitstun whatsoever, are going to make approaching a lot more difficult, as you're going to need to be putting up your shield constantly and maneuvering around differently to get in? You don't just get an open dash through the projectiles to the opponent.
Once again, you ignore the vital aspect that "getting approached" is a much better position to be in, than being "the one who approaches". That's the core concept of competitive Smash in any matchup; the one "getting approach" is the one dictating the match's flow, they're the ones in control, and they're the ones who get to be reactionary to what their opponent does. Even assuming Zelda just got Fox's Blaster, she's in a much better position than before, as she'll be able to play some defense, where she fares much better, instead of having to go out on the offense with a moveset and mobility specs woefully inadequate for such. Then you factor in that a good hypothetical Din's Fire will behave like a typical projectile does instead of Fox's Blaster, and then Zelda doesn't just get to wait for the opponent, they'll have their approaches disrupted and hindered, which in turns makes it much easier for Zelda to react to what they do and punish appropriately.
Really, the main reason Zelda is a bottom tier candidate in Smash 4, was terrible in Brawl, and was terrible in Melee, is because she's a character with the worst design possible for initiating offenses and following through on them, while being completely unable to force approaches so she doesn't have to and then being unable to to hinder any such approaches. Zelda's design isn't fundamentally busted in the wrong way because she lacks a standard nair or bair, her design is busted on the simple fact she's completely screwed over on the whole "approach/getting approached" dynamic, in a way no character but Brawl Ganon and Melee Kirby were.
I understand most of the pieces at play here. But I'm saying that her aerials don't give her the options she needs. When I suggest a better back air and up air, I'm suggesting she have more options to respond to approaches, because the options she currently has aren't really that good.
I
get that you're in an advantageous spot when you're being approached. But a lot of that relies on you having a reliable toolbox of moves to use, so your opponent has to account for more. The idea is that your opponent is restrained and is going in on your terms, and the more options you have, the more likely it is for their approach to fail.
But Zelda doesn't have good defensive tools, especially when you compare her to other lightweights or stalling characters. Lightning Kick isn't awful, but it's not a fantastic move, either. It is VERY easy to punish if it fails, and that leads to aforementioned weakness where her in the air is a really bad thing. Most characters like that who ARE sent in the air tend to have more viable options than she does. Her aerials are mostly sweet-spot reliant to be good.
If she lacks options, her response to an approach becomes predictable. You might only need to account for 1-2 moves as opposed to 3-5 on an approach, putting her in a worse situation. If her only weapon is a fox blaster, then she becomes marginally better by virtue of having a semi-okay damage output. So, now an opponent needs to approach. How do you respond? How do you adequately build damage when your moveset gives you one good projectile, poor mobility, and poor coverage?
Like, what happens when an opponent inevitably catches her and makes her go airborne? The sweetspot reliant nature of her aerials means they don't have a ton of effective coverage. How do you return to a neutral game state where you can proceed to zone and stall with your fox blaster or hypothetical overpowered Din's Fire? There are characters with answers to the question "what now" after being knocked away or seriously challenged, but Zelda doesn't really have a set of versatile options.
Of course an approach isn't going to be automatic, but I'm considering all angles of this. What stage? Does it have platforms? Does her projectile cover her overhead? What are her overhead options? If she can duck under platforms, hw much risk does this carry for getting Dairs/Nairs by a dropping down opponent? Things like THAT. I'm weighing those against a vague hypothetical Din's fire and I just don't see how she becomes viable as a result. Then, I also consider what other zoning characters do, and all I can think of is how she needs a HEAVILY modified moveset to suit a defensive playstyle better.
So; I'll agree she isn't conceptually broken, but I don't agree that DIn's fire makes her viable. She needs a slew of changes that're probably beyond the dev team at this point.