For
, I'll just paraphrase from a certain very high quality Ultimate robin guide that was written recently;
"Gameplay Overview
Robin may seem like a difficult fighter at first, but a closer look at their moveset reveals that Robin is a fairly straightforward character. Their moves are designed to force specific interactions, pin down those interactions, and then punish the opponent for falling into them. This gives Robin an amazing advantage state should everything fall into place, however Robin’s disadvantage state is fairly exploitable as no move can reliably combo break aside from discards hitting the opponent and interrupting them. Robin is fairly vulnerable to edgeguarding as well.
Where Robin shines is at the ledge, forcing shield, and then punishing the opponent for falling for the mindgames. Robin can even set up frame traps such as fair into elwind if the opponent dodges fair offstage. Discarded tomes and swords can be dribbled, juggled, and bounced off shields to confuse the opponent and combo into things like thoron. Robin has a strong juggle game as well, with the latter 3 thunders, arcfire, and discards all catching landings well and up smash and utilt serving as decent grounded anti-airs. Up air’s huge range also serves to prolong juggles.
Robin having access to jump out of Thunder charge is a huge asset to their gameplay as it enhances their disadvantage state by increasing the options available to expand outside of only shielding or attacking, and allows for ambiguous movement in conjunction with b reverses, wavebounces, wavelanding, and more. It even allows for quick bairs while airborne which can throw the opponent off.
Robin is exceptionally strong offstage as well with the angles and power their aerials have. Both Nairs have a downward and horizontal angle which puts a recovering opponent in a really bad spot should they connect. Just 2 or 3 spell doom for anyone without an extremely powerful recovery. Both forward airs have a good amount of knockback that can easily KO an opponent near the blastzones, as will bair. Down air and Elwind’s meteors need no explanation, but their sourspots can sometimes put the opponent an an even more hopeless situation. With as far as Elwind can recover, Robin can confidently go deep and destroy the opponent while safely making it back to stage.
If going offstage seems too unsafe, using arcfire on the ledge is another good option to go far as the piller of fire will hit opponents who wait too long before picking an option and will beat neutral getup handily. There are several ways to go over the piller if the opponent drops down, and roll & airdodge also pass through, so prepare for the opponent to select one of these narrowed down options and act accordingly.
Robin likes to play a mid range zoning game as opposed to long range or close quarters combat. Using Fair as a low commitment pressure tool and Nair to threaten a large area of space on the stage make Robin quite a handful for opponents in this range. Thunder acting as a good, ranged poke that interrupts many approaches and gives Robin time to react to or predict the opponent's responses. Other characters will give Robin trouble should they attempt to contest them in ranges they thrive in where Robin does not. Robin’s disadvantage state makes it easy to get combo’d and killed under the wrong circumstances, but despite the vulnerability, Robin usually escapes relatively quickly.
In short, Robin wants to set up traps and lead the opponent into them with their pressuring tools and tricky movement. They can fall apart easily, but should they ever gain the upper hand the opponent will have to pray to Naga and hope to survive."
Written by: Lady Levin
