Autocancels aren't Roy's only issue with aerials, however. His up air and down air are largely outclassed by similar characters in several areas. His up air is a combo-based aerial, yet it cannot net the stock when Roy needs it most. Other up airs, on characters such as Marth, Lucina, Robin, Corrin, Ike, Cloud, Fox, and Captain Falcon, have the ability to both combo and net stocks at high percents. Marth can combo up air into up tilt or more aerials, but tipper up air is also a potent KO move. Lucina's up air is similar, without a tip mechanic, while still netting stocks at necessary percents. Robin's up air can net a KO anywhere from 80-100, plus it can combo into itself or other aerials at low and mid percents. Ike's falling up air is an underrated combo tool that can lead into a lot at low and mid percents, and it serves as a strong KO move later. Cloud's up air chains are notorious for their terrifying juggles and ability to rack up damage, but the move is also a great KO move. Corrin's up air is a great combo tool, but you can KO off the top around 90-100 with a good read or punish. Fox can chain up air into itself multiple times, as well as forward air into up air for damage, but up air is also one of his most notable KO moves. It can KO confirm by linking from Fox's side-b, down air, or down tilt. Captain Falcon's up air is a strong combo tool that can also combo into knee for stocks, or KO at higher percents.
Roy's up air, however, loses the usefulness of its sweetspot at higher percents. It cannot KO until Sudden Death range, and Roy in general struggles to take stocks unless he forces a large mistake or read to happen. It doesn't KO or lead into KO moves at higher percents, which means the move becomes useless after you rack up a bit of damage. I feel this move would be more properly balanced if the sweetspot were to KO somewhere between Marth and Lucina's range, or if it had the ability to link into back air or Blazer reliably at percents where they consistently take stocks. This would help address Roy's difficulty in taking stocks without a read or punish despite the power of his blade.
Roy's down air is ridiculously difficult to land the sweetspot on, and when the sourspot lands, it sends the opponent straight up, aiding their recovery and doing nothing but sending them back on-stage with the advantage over us. Other down airs commonly send the opponent at a favorable angle instead with their sourspots, which help with edgeguarding. While this is one of the most difficult down airs to land, even with the sourspot, it somehow has less reward than other meteor aerials. Its high startup and limited range are what make it one of the most difficult down airs to land. Even with the sourspot of the move, we shouldn't be punished for landing it. I feel that the sourspot should send opponents at a horizontal angle towards the blastzone, similar to other meteor aerials. It only feels fair when other characters have these desired knockback angles already, but with easier and more useful meteor aerials.
Roy's down air also has a laughably-small sweetspot, and overall poor range. It doesn't swing in a wide arc like Marth or Lucina's, and it doesn't have as much sheer vertical range as Ike's. When it's as difficult to spike with as these aerials, or even more difficult, with the same startup or worse, it doesn't make sense that we have a pitiful sweetspot and poor range overall. A sweetspot increase and a better sourspot knockback angle would help make up for this move's shortcomings, and it would see more use. Many Roys don't even bother with the move at all, and it's practically never optimal or even worth the reward or effort. Much better startup and less midair cooldown after the swing would also be major changes to make the move more useful, to help it match similar aerials in usefulness and allow it to see more offstage use.
Now that we're done covering aerials, let's talk mobility. Isn't mobility one of Roy's greatest strengths? Well, yes and no. Roy clearly has a very fast dash, being the second-fastest running swordsman in the game under normal conditions, with a near-identical run speed to Cloud; the difference is microscopic. However, his air acceleration is among the worst in the game, being more than twice as bad as other high-mobility characters. His air friction, or the loss of his speed in the air, is also among the worst in the game. Because of these attributes, Roy is rarely able to utilize his excellent air speed, overall giving him a clunky and unnatural feeling when taking to the air. At times, he feels almost horizontally stuck if he happens to lose his air speed, which happens easily. He gains air speed at an incredibly slow rate, and loses it at a rather fast rate. His awful dash length makes it so that he has to commit when dashing, and he cannot put up shield or act out of dash as soon as others, which is very uncharacteristic when looking at other mobility-based characters. It takes longer for his dash to come out than others as another result of this, leaving him more vulnerable before his retreat. Most characters in the game have dash lengths with almost half as many frames. It takes away from his control of the ground and general mobility, things Roy is designed to excel at. I feel like these may have been oversights in his design, and that trimming around them will make his design of a high-mobility character more realized. It's another set of changes alongside a few potent autocancels that would add a lot of fluidity to his play, make him handle better, and make him overall a lot better when it comes to approaching and weaving around: his biggest issues.
Why exactly does Roy deserve better mobility? He is built to have control of the ground, and when he struggles to weave around a grounded opponent properly or utilize his dash because of poor frame data, it takes away from what his design could be and makes him a weaker character competitively. Characters such as Sonic, Fox, and Captain Falcon don't have a sword like Roy, but Roy has pitiful range and doesn't need quite as much speed as them. He just needs to handle better with a small increase in speed, to have more of a positive niche of his own.
Roy has a fast run speed, but it's still only 11th in the game. It falls under the "kinda fast, but not really fast" category. Most characters above 11th are designed to have strong control in general rather than focus on control of the ground, which makes me feel that Roy is deserving of a run speed buff. If he were to receive between .1 and .12 point in run speed, he'd go from 1.95 to 2.05 or 2.07, making him roughly as fast as Sheik, Mewtwo, and Greninja. He would once again be the fastest swordsman on the ground, with a clear advantage over Cloud. It'd help him avoid being further overshadowed by Cloud, and it'd make up a bit for the difference in their swords. Roy would finally have a more dominant presence on the ground that he deserves.
Roy is supposed to be a combo-heavy swordsman, and two of his throws are designed to combo: forward throw and down throw. However, they are inconsistent throws that are only overshadowed by Ike's more rewarding, simple, and consistent up and down throws. Roy's throws very often feel as though they're just an inch away from combo'ing properly, and they're butchered by proper DI and reaction. Down throw's issue is that it lacks hitstun, and forward throw's issue is that Roy is often just an inch away from a combo. Even with forward throw's inconsistency, it still remains a superior combo throw over down throw. Adjustments with hitstun, knockback growth, and launch angles of these throws could balance out their usefulness, make them more consistent, and give them a fine balance and consistency similar to Ike's throws. Rather than opting completely for one throw, ideal throw changes would mean that Roy would have to balance the tradeoffs between each throw at different percents. While Roy's back throw is a useless move, I'd much rather see changes to Roy's combo throws first. However, if back throw were given the ability to link into Blazer or back air (similar to Robin's down throw to up air, or Ike's up throw to forward air) at high percents beyond 110 or so as a true combo, then Roy would no longer lose to shield as much at high percents or struggle as much to net stocks, and no changes would be needed to do this for his combo throws. A proper KO confirm would do so much for Roy, and it's been proven to greatly improve characters such as Robin and DK in the past.
Roy's grab range is awful. He'll be standing in front of a shielding opponent and often miss the grab due to his pitiful grab range. I feel one thing that would help him lose to shield less would be an improved grab range. I'm not asking for anything crazy, just something that's noticeable. A better standing grab, dash grab, and even pivot grab would help a ground-based character such as Roy establish better control of the ground.
Roy's up smash has many useless frames, and it lacks enough active frames to catch instances that it seemingly should. There are many frames where Roy is igniting the Sword of Seals that aren't active, and they fail to catch an opponent who is exiting intangibility. Even Bowser, one of the game's largest characters with the worst airdodge in the game overall, can reliably airdodge through frames where Roy's up smash seems active. As a committal, multi-hit move, this move simply deserves a handful of extra active frames to catch the opponent with. This would make it a more reliable option to punish airdodges, rolls, and ledge options. It'd also serve as a more reliable anti-air, and overall see more use.
Another huge quality of life change would be to fix the linking hitboxes of Roy's moves. Often, an opponent can escape from up smash, up-b, or side-b and gain stage advantage or punish Roy. Roy's side-b is less reliable and deals less damage than Marth's, and I feel that it definitely deserves a damage increase and better linking hitboxes. Tweaking its knockback and angles would aid most in consistency. It's just discouraging when you land the up smash or up-b needed to take the stock or win the game, only for the opponent to escape in the middle of the move.
The changes I covered are potential changes I feel most passionately about, which would address his core issues most. Some other changes I propose, most of which have done well in the past at improving other swordfighters, are:
- 1-2% increases on moves such as forward air, back air, forward tilt, up tilt, neutral air, down air, down smash, down tilt, and jab. This will help these moves with damage output, linking consistently, and KO'ing at more reasonable percents. IF nair and jab, and possibly fair are adjusted, then they should see knockback changes to where they deal more % but still combo at the same or roughly the same areas as before, while at the same time KO'ing sooner than before. Some of these moves don't KO early enough to be useful, such as down smash and back air, and a raw percentage increase would fix that.
- Sweetspot and range increases on his sword for most/all moves to mitigate his pitiful range and spacing, and to fix issues with some of Roy's bad hitboxes. Deadzones on his aerials and sword trails could be replaced with sourspots as well.
- Up throw taking stocks a decent amount sooner. This would greatly help Roy when he struggles to take stocks when his opponent is at 140% and above, and it'd prevent him from losing to shield for ridiculous stretches of time at high percents. Currently, Roy's lack of being able to reliably take stocks from a grab does nothing but stall out the game for both players, requiring Roy to switch to an unnecessary degree of patience at times, strongly hurting the momentum and fluidity of his design as well as taking fun out of the game for both players. Nobody likes having their % racked up to 170 or 180 before they lose their stock to an up throw, and nobody likes doing it.
- Increased duration of active hitboxes on neutral-b, more shield damage, and more shieldstun, for both charged and uncharged variants.
- Increased knockback on up-b, and aerial up-b KO'ing off the top of any given stage at similar percents to Corrin's, Charizard's, and Little Mac's; other specials which carry opponents through the air. This would make it so that it's no longer heavily outclassed as an up-b.
- More active frames and less endlag on moves, to match a lot of Marthcina buffs and address core issues. Marth and Lucina have better frame data, notably on startup and active frames, alongside the ability to space opponents better. Roy isn't rewarded enough for a more difficult gameplan, which is invading his opponent's space to rack up damage and gain reward, and proper frame data buffs could be one step in balancing his gameplan out.
- Much better startup on moves, this would matter more than less endlag. Forward air has a frame 10 startup, while Marth's forward air has a startup of 6 frames and it autocancels on top of being a much better spacing tool. Since Roy's forward air is a relatively short and quick swing, its startup can be deceptive until the move is analyzed.
Overall, Roy has a number of flaws that hold him back competitively. I don't think he'll ever be a core threat to competitive play or a truly notable character unless his core flaws are addressed. As it stands, the character is painfully honest, difficult to play completely, and he lacks the appeal or tools to build more than a small playerbase. I also don't think he's awful, but he is definitely heavily disadvantaged in comparison to a lot of characters. The ideal buffs I proposed would make Roy a more potent character, potentially top 15-20, without:
- making any particular tools in his kit ridiculous
- shutting down any particular cast members, whether it be by making them obsolete to play due to Roy's newfound viability, or making their matchup with Roy too difficult
- shutting down any new playstyles
- or making him too easy to play, broken, or too good, even in more casual play
What would this mean in the grand scheme of things? Roy, as a Fire Emblem character, would have fair tradeoffs for choosing to play him over Ike and Corrin, as well as other Fire Emblem characters. As a DLC swordsman, a player would have to weigh the pros and cons more between buying him, Corrin, or Cloud, and this would ultimately affect DLC sales for the better and take away from a lot of linearity of it. Players who bought Roy would be rewarded more for their purchase, ultimately leaving a better taste in their mouths as customers who have bought Roy in the past year. These changes would add more competitive diversity into the game and breathe life into it, only doing many good things for the game and its future.
But what if Roy never sees buffs?
I love the character, and even if Roy never sees improvements, I will continue to main him and push his metagame as much as I can. I would simply like to see him be a stronger character here. It gets tiring when he's been constantly berated across the past decade, only seen as a weak character by many. It seems that we only want him to be strong, that things would only be better for everyone if Roy was better. I was overjoyed in June when he was seen as a much stronger character this time around, finally getting the respect he deserves for being such a cool lord and character. He was brought back due to popular fan demand after being historically overshadowed throughout the years, and I'd like for Roy to step out of the shadows. It's truly a shame that Roy in his current state cannot meet that demand properly, and that things very likely won't change for the better unless in-game improvements happen. I don't feel that it's particularly selfish to want Roy to shine after all of these years, or to push for him to be buffed. After all, do we really want a potential repeat of what happened in Melee?
That said, I hope you guys can see where I'm coming from as someone who would like to see Roy buffed, and I hope this video on the competitive buffs Roy needs was enjoyable and informative. If you would like to support the possibility of Roy being buffed, I would suggest spreading this video around and checking the description for links to directly contact Nintendo and Bandai Namco about Roy's need for buffs. I recommend e-mail most, though if you have already e-mailed Nintendo, then I would suggest reaching out to the social media links below.
