CatRaccoonBL
You can do it!
NIA FOR SMASH SWITCH
INTRODUCTION
Nia has a mysterious past and a prickly attitude, but she still cares for her friends and wants to help them achieve their goal of reaching the mythical place known as Elysium.
Nia is what is know as a Driver. Drivers are anyone who has the ability to bond with "core cystals" to release "Blades" and connect with them. Blades are beings that come with their own weapon and can also pull magical energy from the air called "ether" to use special powers.
Nia's main blade and companion is Dromarch. Nia can even ride on him when not in combat. Though she has been shown to ride on him during some battle cutscenes.
Dromarch is a water healer blade who grants Nia the Twin Rings weapon.
Why Nia?
Nia is a very popular character from Xenoblade 2. I'll admit I don't really have the data, but every xenoblade 2 community typically always comes back with admiration for her. She has some of the best facial expressions in Xenoblade 2 and she can make moments absolutely hilarious during the game. However she also has a amazing character and people love seeing her grow as a person.
Of course a big shout out has to go to her voice actress. One of the major cool things about the xenoblade series in english(or at least the non-x ones), is the fact they use european voice actors. And in Xenoblade 2, each "titan" (country) that people grow up on comes with their own accent. Mor Ardians are Scottish for example. Nia grew up in Gormont so she has a Welsh accent. And let me tell you, a welsh accent is not something you hear everyday. It would really add a lot of spice and flair to Smash bros to hear her in Smash.
And continuing on about her voice, her lines are amazing. If you are a fan of the cheesy lines a lot of Smash bros characters say like Ike, Robin, Sonic, Shulk etc, she would make a fantastic addition to that as well. I would link a video, but the only real video I could find contains spoilers so you might have to find that on your own.
Gameplay
Now it is time to talk about the most important part about any character getting into smash, how would they play. As mentioned before, Nia's main companion and blade is Dromarch who comes with the twin rings weapon.
Twin Rings are interesting melee weapons. Involving more spinning and slashing movements of the arms and while using both of them. She can also throw them in some of her moves.
Thats not all she can do with them. Remember how I said blades could use special attacks? Well in Xenoblade 2, you can fill up a meter. Once the meter fills up, your character will hand their weapon back to their blade, allowing the blade to perform a special attack which can provide much more power. There are 4 stages to a blade special. Depending on how much you charge it will determine what blade special would be perform. However, no matter what blade special you perform it would go back to 0.
Ususally charging specials involve using arts, but for Smash it'll probably involve just connecting attacks on the opponent. These special attacks would most likely be tied to the neutral special. When the level is at 0, the neutral special will do nothing. But depending on what level the special is at, it'll do a specific special.
There is another thing as well. Nia's weapon is also a healing weapon. While I doubt she would have the standard heal move, there is the possibility of the hp potion move being implemented. Hp potion moves are arts where if you manage to connect it, an hp potion will drop from them. If you manage to go to the location of where it dropped, the team would get healed depending on the size of the potion. This could be an interesting healing mechanic because it would require you to not only get close to the opponent but also manage to hit them with the move and then pick up the potion. Could be an interesting way to balance out a healing effect.
Some extra things to consider. Nia riding Dromarch could potentially influence some of the moves she could do in smash which could be interesting in terms of moves. And Drivers could bring 3 blades into a battle. In theory that could potentially also work in smash. Transformation characters have been done in smash before. And that would be a couple steps below it. There are three "classes" of blades. Attacker, Healer, and Tank. Dromarch fills the healer role, so that leaves an attacker and a Tank. My vote is on Greataxe for Attacker and Chrome Katana for Tank. But that could be too big for this. Maybe all Nia really needs is Dromarch.
Next, let's talk final smashes. There are a couple ideas I hear floating around.
First would be to have her just use a chain attack like Shulk does. Techically XB2's chain attacks are different from XB1's but it certainly isn't as exciting as other possibilities.
Second is the idea of a third stage blade combo. Either Nia would use all three of her blades to form the combo and unleash a final special attack that spawns from the combo. Or two other party members from the game will appear to help her with the combo and then the final one (persumbly from Nia) would unleash a final special attack that spawns from the combo.
Finally there is one that is a spoiler.
A transformation final smash. Nia transforms into her blade form and uses her Catalyst Schimtar to deal a lot of damage to everyone.
Finally you may be asking yourself what is the point. There are a lot of things potentially stacked against her involving her just getting into smash. Sure, it might take a miracle. But a miracle could start by showing she is popular. Even if another Xenoblade character gets in the base game, that doesn't immediately disqualify potential dlc for example.
So please consider supporting Nia!
Thank you!
(Note this OP is still a work in progress. I will have points about her vs someone like Rex later).
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