Song of Time: Zelda's Changes in PM. 3.6 HYPE

[4tlas]

At this point, I think I see PM as having taken a large step towards making rush-down styles the correct option, and from the changes across the board it seems to favor that as the correct playstyle. Defensive options are frowned upon, and projectiles and spacing are only going to be good when they are designed for offense. I think if this path is continued down, PM risks losing the character diversity which makes it great. To me it doesn't matter that a specific character is good or viable or whatever, but that multiple styles of play and strategies and options can be used at high levels effectively, and at this point with this build I see less options possible.

I agree with this analysis 100%. I don't know how I feel about your proposed changes to 3.02 Zelda, but for the most part I liked them. But most importantly I agree that this update is trying to make Zelda a rushdown character, and not only do I think she shouldn't be one, we already have enough of those, and other characters do it better, but most importantly homogenizing the cast in playstyle should not be a design goal in the first place.

 

[drsusredfish]

guess I'll post this here too. the video quality is bad. no game audio. Gameplay is pretty good though.

is this pretty much how you other Zelda players play Zelda 3.5?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekRuTOAmXro&feature=youtu.be

 

[TimeSmash]

I also wouldn't be opposed to slightly more hitstun with Din's, seeing as how something like Mario's fireballs are much more spammable and appear to have more hitstun than Din's

 

[Deleted member]

Their approach to this, just based on what I see (here's one of those things where I should be called out if I'm incorrect), was to change how Zelda plays. It was to make her less of a character about controlling opponent approaches and creating safe approaches for herself, and more into a character which should be played aggressively and in the face of the opponent.

So if she is now best in that playstyle and not very effective in tournament-level play, why should I continue to play Zelda? (note: I'm not saying I am dropping her, just that the question is present)

see this is a fine example of why "playstyle" is a bad concept for gaming in general. you simply have your toolset, and you do with it what you are able.

the problem with zelda is NOT that she controls opposing approaches. every character fundamentals has to do this or you will lose. the problem is that prior zelda way considered much too good at it, while completely unable to create "safe approaches" to the point where zelda has no incentive to approach ever. and really, this is readily obvious when all of the zelda players openly describe their characters with phrases like annoying, defensive, passive aggressive, controlling, etc.

zelda's problem from a design standpoint is that it was pretty much impossible for her to play from behind in a strategic sense. if marth is up on you with a stock, there's no way that marth is going to attack you. it's very bad for him to do so, as it entails serious and unnecessary risk when the much better and very obvious play is to force zelda to regain momentum. due to her horrible approaches, she was ill equipped to play the aggressive role and would simply lose. now some characters are simply better at this than others, for example no one thinks twice on a change of momentum for a character like falco. as a sheik player, i understand that it is difficult to play from behind. but from a design standpoint, zelda was way too good at the defensive aspect and way too poor at the offensive one.

the main reason that zelda was buffed was by nerfing everyone else because that de facto mitigated defenders advantage across the cast. once again there are exceptions, like i don't think anyone thinks lucas was nerfed for his defensive aspects. but for the most part when everyone has really good moves it's very hard to meaningfully attack. and in retrospect, that was the #1 thing i always heard from the losing player, was "i can't get in". and not against zelda specifically, but the entire cast. i think at this point zelda's defense tools were toned down simply to remove her linear bias and to gel better with the rest of the cast.

a lot of players are looking at their character changes and taking it personally as if the character was targeted, but it's pretty clear that the entire cast was balanced in tandem with each other character. to make zelda a less polarizing character, her offensive tools had to be (relatively) buffed to eliminate her inability to make comebacks. then her defensive tools were simply brought down to match the rest of the cast.

 

[Rizner]

see this is a fine example of why "playstyle" is a bad concept for gaming in general. you simply have your toolset, and you do with it what you are able.

the problem with zelda is NOT that she controls opposing approaches. every character fundamentals has to do this or you will lose. the problem is that prior zelda way considered much too good at it, while completely unable to create "safe approaches" to the point where zelda has no incentive to approach ever. and really, this is readily obvious when all of the zelda players openly describe their characters with phrases like annoying, defensive, passive aggressive, controlling, etc.

zelda's problem from a design standpoint is that it was pretty much impossible for her to play from behind in a strategic sense. if marth is up on you with a stock, there's no way that marth is going to attack you. it's very bad for him to do so, as it entails serious and unnecessary risk when the much better and very obvious play is to force zelda to regain momentum. due to her horrible approaches, she was ill equipped to play the aggressive role and would simply lose. now some characters are simply better at this than others, for example no one thinks twice on a change of momentum for a character like falco. as a sheik player, i understand that it is difficult to play from behind. but from a design standpoint, zelda was way too good at the defensive aspect and way too poor at the offensive one.

the main reason that zelda was buffed was by nerfing everyone else because that de facto mitigated defenders advantage across the cast. once again there are exceptions, like i don't think anyone thinks lucas was nerfed for his defensive aspects. but for the most part when everyone has really good moves it's very hard to meaningfully attack. and in retrospect, that was the #1 thing i always heard from the losing player, was "i can't get in". and not against zelda specifically, but the entire cast. i think at this point zelda's defense tools were toned down simply to remove her linear bias and to gel better with the rest of the cast.

a lot of players are looking at their character changes and taking it personally as if the character was targeted, but it's pretty clear that the entire cast was balanced in tandem with each other character. to make zelda a less polarizing character, her offensive tools had to be (relatively) buffed to eliminate her inability to make comebacks. then her defensive tools were simply brought down to match the rest of the cast.

I believe that with her previous tools, she could approach and come back against characters who wouldn't take the initiative through positional control and covering your weak points. Dash attack was super unsafe, but when someone doesn't approach you have the ability to throw up that fireball between you, then use it in a way to affect their decisions and cover that unsafe dash attack if necessary.

It isn't that a character or player was targeted, but that character options were tuned down that I don't think feels good at this point. I liked having polarizing characters. Falco has great offense but not much defensively. Why can't the opposite be true for any character? As long as it doesn't get too good for either side (falco all up on you and Zelda nowhere near can be played around).

Then that argument people can't get in - is that a player issue or character issue? Both were probably happening in.02, but giving more characters the ability to deal with it through that shield cancel to enable counter okay but still give that character style or design a thing imo provides more character variety in what can be a balanced fashion.

Also, sorry on phone atm so this might have spelling errors or drift around with it's point some. :-\

 

[Deleted member]

nah you don't have to apologize i'm not a spelling/grammar guy

you can like polarized characters, the problem is that they're still indefensibly bad design, generally (but not always) due to what makes them polarized to begin with. i'll give you an example, i love melee zelda. i can play that character all day and never switch, i don't mind her bad MUs, or anything like that. however, zelda is indefensibly badly designed. she has numerous fatal flaws that she cannot overcome and is terrible for it, as any character with multiple fatal flaws should be.

the same can also be said for falco, who has multiple design flaws as well, but they are all positives instead of negatives. falco is also quite polarizing (think the falco vs DK matchup) and is also terrible as a design. the problem here is that people LOVE falco anyway, so we have to come up with ways to make the character less polarized. falco had a somewhat simpler solution though, because falco's design flaws are generally based around laser, shine and dair, so they simply nerfed those moves. dair doesn't combo as well due to the strong duration nerf, shine isn't invincible, and most importantly lasers only do 1% so the defenders advantage and the stage control created by them are mitigated. atm i would say that falco is fine and that he was de-polarized nicely, but as of 3.5 i would also say the same for zelda.

in 3.02, "not being able to get in" was comprised of multiple issues that, as far as i can tell*, have been resolved. the way you beat it in 3.02 was by switching to a character that could overcome that with some mechanic or polarized character attributes (mewtwo pit diddy sonic lucas) or by playing a character that made it even harder to get in (fox mario). And we can see this as they occupied stream time week in and week out of 2014.

the way that you solve these issues is by de-polarizing the characters that have proven to be problematic and making their attributes more balanced while still preserving their overall general feel, which imo zelda and falco have done nicely. this is especially important because we're trying to make it so each character can interact with each other character in a cast with 41 so far.

 

[4tlas]

see this is a fine example of why "playstyle" is a bad concept for gaming in general. you simply have your toolset, and you do with it what you are able.

the problem with zelda is NOT that she controls opposing approaches. every character fundamentals has to do this or you will lose. the problem is that prior zelda way considered much too good at it, while completely unable to create "safe approaches" to the point where zelda has no incentive to approach ever. and really, this is readily obvious when all of the zelda players openly describe their characters with phrases like annoying, defensive, passive aggressive, controlling, etc.

zelda's problem from a design standpoint is that it was pretty much impossible for her to play from behind in a strategic sense. if marth is up on you with a stock, there's no way that marth is going to attack you. it's very bad for him to do so, as it entails serious and unnecessary risk when the much better and very obvious play is to force zelda to regain momentum. due to her horrible approaches, she was ill equipped to play the aggressive role and would simply lose. now some characters are simply better at this than others, for example no one thinks twice on a change of momentum for a character like falco. as a sheik player, i understand that it is difficult to play from behind. but from a design standpoint, zelda was way too good at the defensive aspect and way too poor at the offensive one.

the main reason that zelda was buffed was by nerfing everyone else because that de facto mitigated defenders advantage across the cast. once again there are exceptions, like i don't think anyone thinks lucas was nerfed for his defensive aspects. but for the most part when everyone has really good moves it's very hard to meaningfully attack. and in retrospect, that was the #1 thing i always heard from the losing player, was "i can't get in". and not against zelda specifically, but the entire cast. i think at this point zelda's defense tools were toned down simply to remove her linear bias and to gel better with the rest of the cast.

a lot of players are looking at their character changes and taking it personally as if the character was targeted, but it's pretty clear that the entire cast was balanced in tandem with each other character. to make zelda a less polarizing character, her offensive tools had to be (relatively) buffed to eliminate her inability to make comebacks. then her defensive tools were simply brought down to match the rest of the cast.

Zelda was able to approach before, and I did it all the time. What I did was set up 2 Dins defensively and use the 3rd as a projectile to rack up damage. Eventually, like with Fox lasers, the opponent felt compelled to approach. If they never did, I could take a whole stock by juggling them off of the stage with the third Din. If they started shielding the third Din, it was now on top of them and I could threaten the approach in tandem with the explosion, knowing that the closer we got to the 3-second mark the more they would have to avoid the Din or shield, allowing a read.

What characters absolutely couldn't get in on me before? Ones who's clank moves were long and/or not disjointed had a difficult time because I could stuff them mid-clank, but they could choose to ignore the Dins. Ones who's movement was not quick enough to bypass the Dins before I could punish their required positioning, but they could just clank the Dins. The characters who had problems had both of these issues. I can't think of a single character that was this disadvantaged.

What characters could Zelda not approach on? She really had 4 approach options: teledash, Dins wall as I described above, crossup with aerial nayrus, and slowly push forward with lightning kick spam. Against a character like Mario or Falco, whose projectile covers all of the space between the players at all times, the only option was teledash. The defensive mixup was not a threat, and appearing in the projectile-covered space was not an option, so it was quite predictable. Approaching these characters was universally impossible across the cast (Falco's lasers more doable, but still a pain in the ass). This was not a Zelda problem.

****ing Smashboards going down has prevented me from posting this for awhile now. I'll read the responses I missed in the meantime and respond later lol sorry

 

[Tweedle]

I'm not claiming to be good, But I also used old Zelda very offensively, and just set up Dins when they were off the stage or dead, or sometimes even just do a short hop dins while jumping back abit just for a quick dins to annoy them, But then I'd go after them with aerials and grabs and smashes, like super aggressively.

Disclaimer: Not claiming anyone I was fighting was very good either, So I don't know if that's advisable or usable competitively.

 

[Rizner]

nah you don't have to apologize i'm not a spelling/grammar guy

you can like polarized characters, the problem is that they're still indefensibly bad design, generally (but not always) due to what makes them polarized to begin with. i'll give you an example, i love melee zelda. i can play that character all day and never switch, i don't mind her bad MUs, or anything like that. however, zelda is indefensibly badly designed. she has numerous fatal flaws that she cannot overcome and is terrible for it, as any character with multiple fatal flaws should be.

the same can also be said for falco, who has multiple design flaws as well, but they are all positives instead of negatives. falco is also quite polarizing (think the falco vs DK matchup) and is also terrible as a design. the problem here is that people LOVE falco anyway, so we have to come up with ways to make the character less polarized. falco had a somewhat simpler solution though, because falco's design flaws are generally based around laser, shine and dair, so they simply nerfed those moves. dair doesn't combo as well due to the strong duration nerf, shine isn't invincible, and most importantly lasers only do 1% so the defenders advantage and the stage control created by them are mitigated. atm i would say that falco is fine and that he was de-polarized nicely, but as of 3.5 i would also say the same for zelda.

in 3.02, "not being able to get in" was comprised of multiple issues that, as far as i can tell*, have been resolved. the way you beat it in 3.02 was by switching to a character that could overcome that with some mechanic or polarized character attributes (mewtwo pit diddy sonic lucas) or by playing a character that made it even harder to get in (fox mario). And we can see this as they occupied stream time week in and week out of 2014.

the way that you solve these issues is by de-polarizing the characters that have proven to be problematic and making their attributes more balanced while still preserving their overall general feel, which imo zelda and falco have done nicely. this is especially important because we're trying to make it so each character can interact with each other character in a cast with 41 so far.

I see. I guess from my perspective, the offensive tone downs weren't comparable to the defensive ones, because the mitigation was around a few minor property changes for offensive characters but not the rest of the cast. Like you said for falco - people love using him so the gameplay concepts were forced to stay the same, it is different treatment than what non rush down characters got. I understand there's a large fan base for spacies, but at the same time, there are people who really enjoyed using Zelda in her previous iteration. Regardless, she wasn't changed with that same standard. Because of those different standards, from an outsiders perspective who can't see all the debate and choices made, it looks like non spacie playstiles were targeted and chosen to be "not smash" (term thrown around on smashboards lately) when considered by the dev team. It's that fundamental choice of how to balance which make me wary going forward that any non rushdowns who are successful in tournaments are at risk for entire kit overhauls, and that in a few more versions the cast will largely be less originality in the cast, and turn into 41 characters which are most successful when played the same way as one another and the best characters just perform that function better or faster than others.

 

[Deleted member]

yeah no i'm kinda on the same page where like i cant believe fox only got his upsmash nerfed. i'm not saying the new version is perfect or anything, just that i've studied this stuff long enough to understand how the changes fall in line with their goal statements. imo they got some stuff wrong for sure, but i think they pretty much nailed zelda.

 

[Rizner]

yeah no i'm kinda on the same page where like i cant believe fox only got his upsmash nerfed. i'm not saying the new version is perfect or anything, just that i've studied this stuff long enough to understand how the changes fall in line with their goal statements. imo they got some stuff wrong for sure, but i think they pretty much nailed zelda.

Huh... were those always the goal statements? I always thought the goal was to allow different options a successful opportunity - not a balance that favors offense, lol. So their goal of offense and defense, but to favor offensive players. If their goal shifts to character level of make everyone more offense, then yeah I see where they're coming from. Still not a fan, but I see it. I feel like they could have outliers, though, that while the characters don't favor offense it doesn't change the overall game from favoring offense?

But yeah, realistically if the game were designed like that, wouldn't the proper outcome be the more offensive you are, the better the character, and if a less offensive character starts to do well they should get changed to meet that goal?

 

[Deleted member]

first off, the ideas of offense and defense are modeling terms at best and you're putting way too much stock into those ideas. but to answer you, the game is meant to have a balanced cast in a general way, not one that favors anything. you want "different options" sure but the way you say it is somewhat misleading because it infers that we value variation more than we actually do, since excessive variation leads to polarized gameplay (like zelda) or straight up degeneracy (like sonic). what we really value is interaction, in such a way that each character can bring something new and uniquely flavorful to the table, but within reason.

 

[Rizner]

first off, the ideas of offense and defense are modeling terms at best and you're putting way too much stock into those ideas. but to answer you, the game is meant to have a balanced cast in a general way, not one that favors anything. you want "different options" sure but the way you say it is somewhat misleading because it infers that we value variation more than we actually do, since excessive variation leads to polarized gameplay (like zelda) or straight up degeneracy (like sonic). what we really value is interaction, in such a way that each character can bring something new and uniquely flavorful to the table, but within reason.

Ah, ok. With that in mind, I can better understand the decisions and reasons for new Zelda. Still going to miss how she was and those options, but do understand it better.

But like you said above, some things with fox and crew no longer make sense with that context, but that is an entirely different situation and that discussion should probably be somewhere else.

Thanks for all the info; much appreciated.

 

[4tlas]

So since SmashU came out and I've been playing that lately, I'm no longer angry about the Zelda changes. I still hate them and miss old Zelda, but I'm not angry. Perhaps I will be able to word my arguments better.

Different characters should have different gameplay, otherwise there is no point. If two characters fill similar gameplay niches/roles/playstyles, they should do so in different ways. Having options of different types allows for counterplay, and having options of different strengths encourages an "optimal" playstyle. This should also link thematically and aesthetically with the gameplay in question, if at all possible.

Zelda is wise and graceful. Thematically, she should defeat her opponent through outthinking them (wise), and her capabilities should be tame (graceful). In a game based on position (even moreso than other fighters due to freedom of movement and stocks being lost strictly due to position), tame roughly equates to slow movement, and wisdom roughly equates to perfect spacing (like with sweetspots).

In a positioning game, slow movement and perfect spacing are inherently the worst traits a character can possibly have, and having both of them will always make Zelda a lopsided character no matter what else is done to her. But she doesn't have to be bad, as these terrible traits can be balanced with other strengths. In order to make her MUs even, her strengths should be spread out to several different categories but only slightly strong in each, allowing her counterplay options but preventing any opponent from being automatically crushed.

Without any good movement, Zelda is incapable of being the "actor" in the neutral. She is really only capable of "reacting", which means either playing defensively or outplaying the enemy so hard offensively that anyone else could do it better. Since choosing to be the "reactor" is always an option for every character, there is no reason for an opponent to choose to be the "actor" when Zelda's is so bad. Thus she needs either a way to force an opponent to act (approach), or act herself. If possible, we should aim to achieve this goal with as little extraneous ability as possible, so as to both cut down on "jank" and to prevent having options that are simultaneously flexible and powerful.

(Note: here I intended to go through all of her old options and slowly make arguments for and against them, but I'm lazy/rushed right now, so I'll skip to the part I think is important)

The concept of old Din's was a flexible move (options) without much power. Only a few options had power, and those all involved combining Dins with the rest of her moveset, which is a bad moveset and has great counterplay. Even each option of Dins itself had counterplay, and the best counterplay by far was to not allow her to use the move in the first place. In other words, it encouraged opponents to approach. Opponents could counter defensive placements by camping (or rushing her before the placement), and Zelda could counter camping by placing them aggressively. Opponents could counter aggressive placements with clanking or by circumnavigating and attacking, and Zelda could counter the clanking by placing them on opponents. Opponents to counter that could shield the Dins and use the lack of mine hitbox to approach. All of the options where the opponent approaches lead to interaction, and all of the options where both players camped were discouraged.

The new Din doesn't seem to force an approach at all (in fact it does nothing if not deter an approach). To prevent an opponent from camping, she needs to have an offensive tool. Offensive new Dins is just as clankable as the old one, but Zelda cannot place them on opponents to counter that, as it now is clanked by shield as well. Furthermore, the Din's lack of mobility (speed and directional control) at range prevents mindgames/mixups of offensive mine placements and direct damage placements. The opponent can camp forever, so Zelda has returned to being forced into an approach (or we both sit around for 8 mins...)

Thematically, I think Zelda is much more appropriate as a character that tries to outspace and mindgame her opponent, which old Dins allowed her to do. I don't find the teleport cancelling (new or old) to be very Zelda, but I don't think its overkill to give her an approach option (after all, if its the only 1 it becomes predictable). I felt the Nayru's invuln was appropriate and I didn't feel that way about the land-cancel, but I can live with the change because I think its a better gameplay pattern to have it be a passable approach option. The supersweetspots felt like they rewarded you for impeccable spacing and didn't feel too oppressive (but I don't play fatties so...).

(Note: rest got lost to smashboards. I'm rewriting so hopefully I remember what I said)

Nope. Don't remember. It was a tl;dr of sorts, something about Zelda being homogenized being a bad thing. I'd rather have her be low tier but unique any day. If that requires nerfing everything, fine, but I think the unique playstyle is simply undoable with new Dins.

Stupid smashboards, I had it all nicely articulated too. That's what happens when you write an hour long spiel at 4am...

 

[TimeSmash]

I want to respond to that and will but you've inspired me to say some stuff as well

There have been arguments in this discussion as well as other threads that talk about characters being unSmash-like, when really such a term is subjective, and is an argument that doesn't hold much water. While 3.02 Zelda did play in a nontraditional way that most people had issues with, that's not exactly what I want to state here. Camping is not fun to watch, or even do really, but at the same time is a different play style. People seem very focused on rushdown characters and playstyles, which leads to a faster game, but people tend to follow the same styles but with different moves. While 3.5 removed a lot of the gimmicks, which I support for the most part, it also is heading towards a direction that is in volition of their original statement which said the game wanted to focus on a balance of offensive and defensive play with slightly more focus on the offensive. Characters are becoming way less defensive, and further homogenizing playstyles so everyone fits into an aggressive model. I'm not saying 3.5 should be a campfest or play keepaway like Brawl, because both of those are boring to watch. I'm not even saying all the gimmicks were good, but I do like that the diversity of playstyles that came from that. Think about Ivysaur as a good example. While her projectile was and still is crappy, Seed Bomb did (and still does, actually) lead to weird setups or reads because it was a vertical projectile in a seed of mostly horizontal ones. Furthermore, Solarbeam charging is a great addition to her, and helps reward the character who isn't particularly great at playing aggro. 3.5 took the option where Ivysaur could charge off of stage elements, which wasn't really that abusable and points her slightly more in the direction of where 3.5 is going. Also, there are a lot of changes that are switched to Melee stats, which is unoriginal as well as unnecessary. I love Melee, and I love Project M as well, but this is no longer Project Melee. In a game where you're trying to make everyone somewhat viable, you can't rely on Melee. Because only about ten characters were, and that's being generous. I'm not saying every character should have gimmicks, nor should they be unfun to play against. I'm not even saying I want 3.02 Zelda back (I do, but that's not really the point of this post. In a thread I made about Zelda changes. Wow I am great at being on topic.) But neutering different playstyles and promoting only one way to play shouldn't be what Project M is about, either.

 

[4tlas]

Another thing that really wasn't appropriate in my large post but I still feel should be addressed anyway is why people hated the old Dins. If the opponent played "normally" (that is, not playing the RPS of avoiding/clanking/circumventing Dins), it was possible to simply spam them and they acted similar to a Falco laser. Low hitstun, low damage, constant annoying harass. The difference between a campy Zelda and a campy Falco was that a) Dins are more easily counterable and b) Zelda had a better defensive game for when the opponent finally did get in. A lot of players, when defeated by Zelda's great defensive options, felt frustrated that "I finally got around those ****ing mines and now she just has to hit B to get out of pressure for free!" Because they don't force Zelda to use the Dins offensively, she has a good defensive setup. They don't try a different strategy, probably because most players aren't used to playing slowly and methodically. And this is where the "problem" lies.

Dins slowed the game down. Weaving/outcamping/destroying the minefield took time, and this is on top of Zelda's uncomboability and great recovery slowing the game down. People don't like the game slowed down. I understand that. But I would much rather look at other ways to fix these issues (change stagelists to make average stagesize smaller, make Zelda fall faster more like Sheik, etc) than take away her ability to make the gameplay unique through player choice in-game.

 

[Reidlos Toof]

The problem with Zelda in 3.5 to me osn't about her playstyle or her options, I can always learn to adjust how I play the character, it's that she feels like she was designed by someone who had never actually played her before in their life. They seem to have set out from the start with the clear and decisive notion that "Zelda must be changed" and then just started changing her specials to what they thought might be theoretically interesting. Her Din's fire seems to have been pulled completely out of the programmer's ass, and it shows that they gave it a lot of thought in how it operates, what with the preserved direction, but they didn't give a **** about how viable it would be. Changing her up B cancel from air dodging to a second b press seems more intuitive on paper, but when Zelda mains have already gotten so used to air dodging out of it to cancel it, all it does is tell them to go **** themselves because the designer wants to change it for "reasons".

There's also the fact that she doesn't seem to have been playtested at all. Putting out a Din's fire and exploding it just to get shot by a Falco laser and have it go off in whatever direction it wants to feels like a major disconnect in your ability to control the move. Likewise, the fact that the Din's doesn't always explode when you get the side B animation out while it's returning to you feels clunky and unintuitive. If I can get the animation out, it should explode. The fact that she is force into a walking animation out of a canceled Farore's feels similarly disconnected from her play design. If you are going to give her a cancel-able teleport, which is already difficult to aim and time, AND the stipulations for the lowest endlag as a ground to ground teleport, it's peak usefulness should not still be less then another, much easier, safer, and higher utility teleport in the game, which it is.

 

[Arcalyth]

Finally got some serous lab work in.

1. Telecancel fix will be really nice.
2. New dins fire is pretty sick.
3. Aerial nayrus with invincibility would be broken with new dins.
4. Supersweet kick would be broken with the overall improvements to her combo game (ftilt/fthrow/dins)
5. The key to Dins is definitely in the detonation command (side-b while returning).

Uses I've found for new dins:
1. Fast dins on feet will pop opponents toward you for free combos. Recall is very fast so you can feasibly pull the opponent, push the opponent, pull the opponent, air combo> kill and similar.

2. Midsized dins are mobile enough to be threatening, big enough to get good follow ups on, and slow enough to control with the detonation. See 1. for combo potential. Good for edgeguard and recovery. Use telecancel with recall to mobilize the fireball.

3. Large dins cover lots of space around Zelda on recall. Very slow and can be detonated multiple times for effect. Great combo opportunity like detonate>kick> return>kick.

4. Recall/detonate/return has interesting space coverage especially when used with telecancel.

5. Traps and timer traps are definitely still a thing ala pre-3.5. Zhime's finisher should theoretically still work. Throw traps are a definite yes. Push people into dins, then combo off of it... you can still do that too but see the previous points for further depth of combo opportunity.

Definitely like thay she has actual midrange play now. I think I see what umbreon means by 'real smash character' now

 

[4tlas]

Finally got some serous lab work in.

1. Telecancel fix will be really nice.
2. New dins fire is pretty sick.
3. Aerial nayrus with invincibility would be broken with new dins.
4. Supersweet kick would be broken with the overall improvements to her combo game (ftilt/fthrow/dins)
5. The key to Dins is definitely in the detonation command (side-b while returning).

Uses I've found for new dins:
1. Fast dins on feet will pop opponents toward you for free combos. Recall is very fast so you can feasibly pull the opponent, push the opponent, pull the opponent, air combo> kill and similar.

2. Midsized dins are mobile enough to be threatening, big enough to get good follow ups on, and slow enough to control with the detonation. See 1. for combo potential. Good for edgeguard and recovery. Use telecancel with recall to mobilize the fireball.

3. Large dins cover lots of space around Zelda on recall. Very slow and can be detonated multiple times for effect. Great combo opportunity like detonate>kick> return>kick.

4. Recall/detonate/return has interesting space coverage especially when used with telecancel.

5. Traps and timer traps are definitely still a thing ala pre-3.5. Zhime's finisher should theoretically still work. Throw traps are a definite yes. Push people into dins, then combo off of it... you can still do that too but see the previous points for further depth of combo opportunity.

Definitely like thay she has actual midrange play now. I think I see what umbreon means by 'real smash character' now

I'm glad you've found ways to use it. All the ways I can find either a) worked with her old Dins too (if it required only 1) or b) just don't seem to work if the opponent just shields, like Melee/Brawl Dins. The only new tactic that I've been able to use at all is your #4, but that is also easily countered by a shield as I find it difficult to grab out of telecancel right now.

I'm curious, how would aerial nayrus invuln or supersweet lightning kick be broken with the new kit?

 

[HRR2b23]

I'm glad you've found ways to use it. All the ways I can find either a) worked with her old Dins too (if it required only 1) or b) just don't seem to work if the opponent just shields, like Melee/Brawl Dins. The only new tactic that I've been able to use at all is your #4, but that is also easily countered by a shield as I find it difficult to grab out of telecancel right now.

I'm curious, how would aerial nayrus invuln or supersweet lightning kick be broken with the new kit?

I think that he meant that since fthrow combos better, fthrow->kick would be too powerful, but I don't really see that since fthrow can only combo if they DI in

 

[BJN39]

The problem with Zelda in 3.5 to me osn't about her playstyle or her options, I can always learn to adjust how I play the character, it's that she feels like she was designed by someone who had never actually played her before in their life.

Just, oh my **** yes. You truly hit the nail on the head with this statement.

The PMBR actually shut out Ryoko and ZHime from her development entirely. (And consequently, ZHime eventually quit the PMBR due to choices made by the new "developers" Hew even made her anyways? That's what I wanna know.) After that there is literally no one else in the PMBR who even plays Zelda.

Unless there is some secret dedicated closet Zelda main in the PMBR who took over, but LOLno.

 

[Arcalyth]

When you detonate the fireball it reactivates the return hitbox and stalls the return for a moment so it becomes usable again if you move elsewhere. That should solve your shield problem. Or just detonate it just as they get near it.

 

[4tlas]

When you detonate the fireball it reactivates the return hitbox and stalls the return for a moment so it becomes usable again if you move elsewhere. That should solve your shield problem. Or just detonate it just as they get near it.

I know, but I still can't get it to work against someone who just shields, especially since it does almost no shield damage (explosion or not), grabbing and manual explosion are obviously mutually exclusive, and manual explosion has a cooldown that is also triggered by an opponent hitting, getting hit by, or shielding the Dins. I just can't get it to work against someone who is used to shielding projectiles or just shielding in general, and Zelda is too slow to close a gap and grab during that tiny amount of time the shield needs to be up for.

 

[SpiderMad]

The pages weren't intended to be updated quite yet so there will be some inaccuracies. To clarify, it can be shortened when started from both ground and air now similar to spacies side-bs, and the ground to ground cancel is roughly the same lag as teledashing, while in the air it has a bit more landing lag but opens up ways to edge cancel off platforms with good timing. You can also snap onto platforms with the cancel while traveling upwards as well much like a waveland, so you can use it in the same ways as before for the most part, as well as some new things you can do with it, without being as strange as being able to airdodge out of it if you happened to start it on the ground. Coming from the guy who originally created the AD cancel I think it's a much cleaner implementation of it.

Could you please go on about what made you change your mind to feel this way? I think I partially see: where you want her to be less centralized on her Up-b's larger options from air dodge, but then also somehow find it "strange" and possibly "grotesque" visually to see someone so freely perform an air dodge (and possibly distaste for when someone sloppily misses the waveland making it look even more strange?) especially when it's only from the ground (while this offers enough limited options to then make it usable in the air as well, offering some new options), and feel going with a few of the Melee character's unique mechanics to base everyone else off of to be homogeneous with.

 

[Magus420]

Been meaning to reply to some things mentioned in here for a while. Sorry for the wall of purp but there's a lot of quotes! lol.
----------------------------------------

Since up b has a b-cancel do you think you can add a b-revers cancel like charizard has on glide?

I like that the b cancel keeps her momentum but it should also let you decided where that momentum goes after the teleport.

This was something I had considered since it'd be most similar to being able to waveland in either direction but it looked pretty silly in my head (moreso in the air), as reversibility on secondary actions like Zard's 3.02 glide ending looks especially strange (one of the reasons it uses its own animation in 3.5), and didn't pursue coding it. It may actually look alright on just the ground-ground cancel though, since it's so short and she's invisible before it instead of seeing the previous animation. Being able to edge cancel off the front side of platforms from way offstage for recovery if applied to all of the up-b endings sounds kind of nuts anyway.
----------------------------------------

I'm starting to get used to the new din but there are a couple of odd things with it.

as the din is returning to you if it hits the opponent you can't make it explode until its almost back to you. It should detonate when ever you press side b. of course there is a cool down time between each explosion but hitting the opponent with the traveling hitbox should not affect that.

The traveling proximity hit box doesn't refresh after a hit. I found a way to make the din spin around zelda infinitely ( or rather until its timer runs out.) I did this near the enemy in training mode expecting it to do alot of hits but it passes right through them after the first hit hits. On the plus side you can still detonante it multiple times while its spining but since the proximity hitbox is gone its not hard to just attack zelda.

One of the reasons for the activation cooldown after it connects with something is so you can't reactively blow it up on someone that clanked it, hitting them with the explosion and/or the return hit when it loops back, and instead need to anticipate it (both the activation and timed explosions are non-clank). If placed above shield height they wouldn't really be able to do too much about it without a clanking projectile or sword, which is kind of strong for what it is. Another reason was that the stationary+activate+return combo that often occurred from a single hit did somewhat questionable amounts of damage. There's probably some kind of configuration between whether clank/shield/hit activates the cooldown if any, size of activation hitbox to more reasonably space it to avoid the on hit cooldown, and damage/KB that's both fair but not as limiting/unintuitive.

I had originally tried a refresh rate on the return hitbox, but in order to make it not rehit right after it is clanked/blocked/hits I needed to have it at the better part of a second which was long enough that without some sort of indication that it can hit them again was pretty strange. The return hit currently refreshing whenever it's reactivated is pretty straightforward for both players though. Kind of ties into the above with on hit cooldown, but maybe something like the flame going out for a bit on clank/shield/hit could serve as both the re-activation cooldown and self refreshing return hitbox indicators.
----------------------------------------

@ Magus420 after setting a din and then trying to immediately activate nayrus by repeating pressing B, for some reason instead of nayrus the action of a side B occurs, calling the din back in (and I am pretty darn sure I'm not slightly holding left). So I am getting punished when I meant to do nayru. I think 4tlas also had the same problem

That happens because there's an interrupt right after placing it specifically to call it back immediately but before it's interruptible normally rather than needing to wait out the entire ending then also go through the recall animation as well. I explain it here, and it'll require a side-b input whenever the 3.5 update patch comes out since that's been a common complaint. Didn't really have that issue myself since I already knew when the normal interrupt begins beforehand to be inputting other B moves out of it.
----------------------------------------

@ Magus420 I've noticed if I am recovering and I brush against the side of a level (let's say, distant planet) before using up-B straight up, I will disappear, travel no distance, then reappear at the same location before falling to my extremely embarrassing death. Seems like a strange collision issue. This isn't intentional, is it?

So they didn't fix the wall thing like it says in the changelog. I thnk they forgot to mention her ledge grab box is alot smaller too. If you come at the ledge the same way as 3.02 you either land on top of the stage or stick to the wall just under the ledge and don't grab. Zelda just doesn't snap to the ledge like most other characters.

The wall thing in the changelog refers to the exit animation. In brawl/PM it cancels the vertical speed on exit and disables her gravity for a bit for whatever reason, so you need to aim higher than normal to reach the edge when going in an upwards direction. The change there preserves some of the vertical so you slide up the wall a bit, like if you up-b into the underside of FD you'll slide up and into ledge range. Takes some adjustment to aim lower if used to how brawl had it, but an improvement overall once you do imo.

The ledge grab range is indeed smaller though, but that's a cast-wide change. Ledge grab box mechanics were completely overhauled to work like melee as it gives more consistent vertical sweetspot timing along with adjustable distance from character to top of the ledgebox: Reverse range matches front instead of huge, horizontal range varies based on how far they reach out while vertical is fixed and sweetspot size can be adjusted by how high they are in the animation, instead of like brawl where horizontal being fixed and vertical is offset from the bottom of the character forcing upright positioning during an animation to have poor sweetspots and curled up having huge ones. When the cast had new offsets to use the new mechanics they were done leaner and more similar to melee.

Spoiler

I actually did happen to fix that dumb wall snag that set Y speed to 0 while traveling if you were touching a wall as you disappear about a week ago though. Not only will you be able to safely hold up while touching a vertical wall, you can ride the wall at an angle as long as it's not at more than 45 degrees with respect to the collision (hitting a collision too head on triggers the exit as it always has since melee).

----------------------------------------

Teleshort is glitchy and dumb, it removes any movement options she had before and does not snap to platforms like the PMDT said it did. The Teledash needs to be returned to its former glory, but the Teleshort should continue to exist just because of the utility of an aerial Teleshort. They also need to fix the two main Farore's Wind glitches: the up-b along the stage glitch (which I have yet to encounter in 3.5) and the glitch where you cannot Teleport down through moving platforms.

It does snap onto platforms, but rather than passing it and then ADing down onto it to land you need to input B right before you would pass it. The way it works is the start of the cancel lifts the bottom of her collision box up a lot so she can get 'above' it (she's still invisible at this point), then when she reappears it shifts back down and can trigger the landing. Technically it's a bit faster to get up onto platforms (same timing would have you AD too early and miss), but the extra lag that's there on reappearance atm that shouldn't be mostly cancels that out. Currently it's pretty strict timing to snap onto platforms while going vertically compared to more horizontally which is pretty easy, which was true for AD as well, but overshooting a shorten is a lot worse than a sloppy AD landing.

Moving platforms have weird collision detection in general in brawl. No clue why it gets hung up on them.
----------------------------------------

I think din will arc down or up after it is pulled depending on, while placing it, what your last input was. directly sideways = down arc. otherwise it reacts as you'd think it would (up = up, down = down). This is useful when opponents are recovering and you'd like to time Din's arc in such a way that it makes it more likely to hit so they need to potentially burn a recovery option. For example:

in the first option you angle it up slightly to prevent them double jumping over it while also making it potentially catch them later on the return. they have the luxury of being able to delay their upB/jump a bit to try and dodge the din but you get potential follow-up options ( jump off aerials / dsmash over edge if they mistime their sweet spot due to trying to dodge din)
in the second option they are higher up thus will take more time to travel under a din you put in between them and the ledge. since the din will intercept them lower on its return this makes their recovery much harder by limiting their options/timing. However, this doesn't give you as many follow-up options.
Hopefully that shoddy *** diagram and my 4th grade writing skills illustrates (literally??) the point I'm making haha.

The way it turns at any time it's in motion is just whichever way is the shortest turn to face Zelda. When it starts to move it begins in the direction it was moving when placed (indicated by the little fire trail while stationary), so if you imagine a line drawn along the direction it's heading at any given moment, it will turn one way or the other depending on which side of that line Zelda lies (assuming it's linked and she's visible). The turn towards the shortest angle to Zelda is what allows it to circle around her if charged. If it's going in a clockwise circle it's because it keeps seeing Zelda on its right side of the line and turning slightly to its right every frame, but not sharply enough to actually get to her so it ends up looping around.
----------------------------------------

The most controversial thing is probably Din's... The fact that you fastfall during it must be a bug, but for the time being can be used to mess with opponent's reads and spacing.

The way Din's cast works in 3.5 is it preserves downward fall speed (different), cancels out upward (unchanged), and accelerates downward until reaching top speed extra slowly (unchanged). So if used while going up or at the peak of a jump you stop then slowly accelerate downwards as you would previously, but if you're falling that speed carries into it. Perhaps a bit weird, but when I was being rewarded for getting hit high upwards/recovering with being able to safely get a full charge big Din's into play without using a DJ it felt pretty dirty considering the extra utility the fat ones have while moving. You still can do that on some stages, but you need to use the DJ first to cancel out the fall speed and then start it at the peak of the jump, so it's a lot more risky (though her airdodge is much better in 3.5 since you can fastfall it early, same with Peach, which makes it more useful for getting down than normal ADs). Note that during strong KB you're actually falling at full speed the entire time, just the KB is stronger and making you appear to be moving upwards overall, so if you use it directly out of KB it keeps the full fall speed and is just like as if you did an aerial out of it of something.

Lighting Kicks...ahhh. Not the best. The sweetspot has definitely changed, and since I'm so used to 3.02 and Smash 4, which sort of have similar sweetspots, it's weird to get used to. Something like ledgehop -> Fair doesn't seem to work now, but again I'm very new with the kicks, so that may be just spacing. But at the same time, I'm not going to attempt ledgehop->Fair if it's way more risky.

Good opportunity to explain the kick differences I suppose:

Top is 3.02 and bottom 3.5. The green/blue middle sized ones on the body all have the same damage/KB, the tiny red one on the toe on 3.02 is the supersweetspot, and the largest yellow/orange on the toe on 3.02/3.5 are the 'melee' sweetspots. The initial 'melee' hitbox is stronger in 3.5 and roughly similar to melee kick's KB, with f-air keeping the slightly lower trajectory it's always had in PM to be a little more effective than melee f-air and b-air being pretty much the same KB as melee.

When multiple hitboxes connect on something at the same time the one that gets used depends on their priority, which is just the ID number used on the hitbox (lower ID = more priority).
3.02: Blue > Red > Green> Yellow
-Supersweet: Connect Red without connecting with Blue
-Sweet(-): Connect Yellow without connecting with any other hitbox
-Flub: Connect any part of Blue, or connect Green without connecting with Red

3.5: Blue > Green > Orange
-Sweet(+): Connect Orange without connecting with Blue/Green
-Flub: Connect any part of Blue/Green

The lines I put on there show the strictly horizontal spacing to land each hit, though it assumes you're hitting a big fat hurtbox. On 3.02 supersweet hit you usually can't get as close as that inner red line and connect the Red hitbox unless you're hitting a large character's torso or something, and being as small as it was wasn't always reliable when aiming for other parts and tended to whiff smaller moving hurtboxes like arms/legs or them simply being slightly off the Z axis during the animation.

Ledgehop kick works, just need to not jump as far in if they are right on the edge, since the inside of the orange range is further out than how close you could be and land the red supersweet hit before.

The higher KB and slightly more damage at long range on 3.5 kicks is a little better for tight combos that there wasn't enough stun to get close enough to connect the super on their torso to guarantee that hitbox connects, and arguably same or possibly better in neutral (not as clear there since there's both positives/negatives on each for that purpose). The blue leg/hip hitbox no longer needing to regulate the supersweet spacing and being back on her hip gives more body coverage but doesn't matter in most cases. Obviously quite a lot worse for lenient combos where the super toe was guaranteed. Though loss of super toes sounds worse I can see 3.5 kicks being a net neutral/positive in some matchups.

Down Throw feels so weird now! It seems the angle is sends away at (behind Zelda) is lower, like I said before you can't as easily follow up with a Bair. But saying this now I almost wonder if you could use a Dair and see what happens (someone test this please!!) But maybe the angle is just me, as the changelog says nothing about it really unless KB compensation has something to do with it.

This wasn't a change directly to d-throw itself, but all throws in 3-3.02 released higher than normal due to a bug, in this case leaving them in the air for a bit longer before reaching the ground. The KB itself is the same, but instead of the KB starting from above floor height they get sent up from closer to the floor like in 2.6 and prior.

UpAir WAHHHH. The explosion feels so much weaker due to the knockback nerf. The move feels...different, but you can still do upwards KOs with it, albeit at higher percents. For some reason, it feels easier to link to UpAirs together in the air. What happened to me on Yoshi's was that I UpAired, they got enough knockback to stay in the air for a while, I immediately fastfell after hitting with the explosion, then followed their DI and double jumped to hit with another UpAir explosion and killed them. It feels easier, but it might be a placebo effect.

This is confusing to me and you're not the first to mention an "u-air nerf", but the explosion is completely unchanged. The little electric flub on her arm before the explosion comes out is what's different, and is stronger so it begins comboing much earlier and hit confirms better, though the angle is not as vertical so autocancel u-air flub doesn't become a free easy hit at any damage regardless of DI.

Speaking of which, I don't think I've ever seen anyone else use it despite being there since demo 1.0, but u-air autocancels (goes into 4 frame empty landing) any time before the explosion comes out so if you land between when her hand sparks and the fireball you get a nice vertical extremely low landing lag combo aerial that's also safe on block though very short range and requires a particular timing. I do it out of shorthop by fastfalling->c-stick u-air nearly at the same time at the peak of the SH. Also works off platforms with run off/drop through/shield platform drop FF->u-air, though on higher ones you'll need to delay the u-air slightly.
----------------------------------------

Just, oh my **** yes. You truly hit the nail on the head with this statement.

The PMBR actually shut out Ryoko and ZHime from her development entirely. (And consequently, ZHime eventually quit the PMBR due to choices made by the new "developers" Hew even made her anyways? That's what I wanna know.) After that there is literally no one else in the PMBR who even plays Zelda.

Unless there is some secret dedicated closet Zelda main in the PMBR who took over, but LOLno.

I do! =D I've used Zelda as a third main/secondary at a competitive level for a good 8+ years or so since melee (though the vast majority of that is with melee Zelda), playing some of the better players in NJ with the character, and also against her quite a lot in all games as I've known Ryoko for even longer (prob where I got the idea to pick her up in the first place I think). This is where I would say I'm pretty good with her, but considering I don't think I have a recorded match that isn't 3+ years old and bad or entered a singles event at much of anything I've gone to in recent years feel free to doubt me on that claim, lol. Also, that isn't what happened, and they were not shut out. Zhime left the team on the day it became clear her development would start operating like every other character in the game (weighted input based on player skill/knowledge of the character from the team as a whole) and not 1-2 individuals having absolute authority. The only actual changes in consideration at the time were nayru's air invincibility/love jump, adjusting GFX on din's while placed to more accurately indicate the potential range of the explosions, and normalizing SDI multipliers on single hits and adjusting multihits to something between 0x and what's functional, so I doubt the changes being discussed at the time were why he decided to leave.

I guess you could say I 'lead' Zelda development once again with Ryoko mostly uninterested in the game for a while now, and no I didn't just go changing stuff randomly if you were wondering =P. Other than some 3.5 themed SDI/KB scaling/etc adjustments that probably look kind of random if not looking at other similar things done to the rest of the cast, one of the goals I tried to accomplish in 3.5 was to improve her midrange options and immediate range in neutral some (wavelands, bit more reach on dash attack, din's fast enough to be usable in neutral, etc) which I felt was never really addressed, so reactionary play with characters that can abuse it well is less profitable. Also ties in to the 'fun' to fight issue imo since I don't find matchups heavily revolving around a highly stacked neutral that is predominately nothing mixed with occasional assertion of an actual threat from the position (can't literally never attack after all or you can't bait out actions to punish) to be very enjoyable from either side of the matchup.
----------------------------------------

Could you please go on about what made you change your mind to feel this way? I think I partially see: where you want her to be less centralized on her Up-b's larger options from air dodge, but then also somehow find it "strange" and possibly "grotesque" visually to see someone so freely perform an air dodge (and possibly distaste for when someone sloppily misses the waveland making it look even more strange?) especially when it's only from the ground (while this offers enough limited options to then make it usable in the air as well, offering some new options), and feel going with a few of the Melee character's unique mechanics to base everyone else off of to be homogeneous with.

Not entirely sure what you mean, as I didn't change my mind on something. The idea of shortening with B didn't occur to me back in pre demo 1.0, and even if it did the way the platform snap works wouldn't have worked back then anyway with the static landing detection. I liked the concept of improving her mobility options with up-b, so I came up with the AD cancel. Enough so that I included it despite needing to tack on additional weirdness where you needed to be touching the ground at the end of startup so that it didn't make her recovery ridiculously stupid.

Whenever the kinks get worked out on it, the shorten with B becomes a way to get that same basic utility without the touch-ground-during-startup-so-you-can-cancel-into-a-directional-airdodge-while-you're-invisible aspect... Kind of speaks for itself I feel as an obvious design improvement whether spacies' side-b cancels exist or not, even if there are some differences in what you can/can't do with each approach to that end.

 

[SpiderMad]

I liked the concept of improving her mobility options with up-b, so I came up with the AD cancel. Enough so that I included it despite needing to tack on additional weirdness where you needed to be touching the ground at the end of startup so that it didn't make her recovery ridiculously stupid.

Whenever the kinks get worked out on it, the shorten with B becomes a way to get that same basic utility without the touch-ground-during-startup-so-you-can-cancel-into-a-directional-airdodge-while-you're-invisible aspect... Kind of speaks for itself I feel as an obvious design improvement whether spacies' side-b cancels exist or not, even if there are some differences in what you can/can't do with each approach to that end.

I appreciate the reply. It makes more sense to be an improvement towards making the game to be very intuitively understandable, but it's not like the past mechanic was far from being decently intuitive when "oh I just have to be grounded to use the Air dodge cancel" and then that was that. So I'm guessing all the factors about "what you can/can't do with each approach" probably weighed more than just the intuitive/weirdness aspect? Or are you guys so hardcore on intuitiveness that you'll remove other mechanics later on in the game for such reason alone?

If something proves to have a lot of awesome depth without being overpowered, toxic, or over-centralizing: then I wouldn't hope that mechanic be removed for just having weird aspects that might take you/or the opponent a couple minutes to understand for the many hours further you're going to be enjoying the game/that character. I mean I still don't fully understand Lucario's weird-and-strange-OH-cancel-tree, and that's fine.

I'm scared for Diddy's Peanut gun AD cancel, you'd be killing off so much of what PM brought to the game just for the sake of whatever this get rid of remaining weirdness/homogenize everything approach is.

 

[Magus420]

You could just ask me directly about Wolf's blaster and Diddy's peanut gun AD cancels instead of beating around the bush you know =P

I don't have an opinion on them nor ideas for how to accomplish most of what they can do differently like with teledash vs telecancel.

Edit: Ah there's the edit actually mentioning that's what you were getting at lol

 

[Karmaic Avidity]

I think I know the answer to this, but can we get some insight as to why Love Jump was removed? It was a nice tool to have, and was really useful, but also really punishable, or so I thought. I was really bummed to see it go, and even more bummed when speculating the reasons why. Also, why exactly was the intangibility on aerial Nayru's removed? That one I really have no idea on.

Thanks Magus

 

[SpiderMad]

You could just ask me directly about Wolf's blaster and Diddy's peanut gun AD cancels instead of beating around the bush you know =P

I don't have an opinion on them nor ideas for how to accomplish most of what they can do differently like with teledash vs telecancel.

Edit: Ah there's the edit actually mentioning that's what you were getting at lol

I love how many amazing tricks it can do, and how amazingly fresh it feels to perform the very action of SH Peanut WL which you can't find anywhere else. And how it works so sweetly in tandem with the banana to WL catch/grab or AGT both in or out of hand (and on platforms and stuff https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJDkfjFr1F0#t=206 ) and also allows you to AD grab or AGT the peanut itself (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTN46wHxLoA ). Honestly videos don't do a justice but I can't resist keep linking videos for stuff (and I plan to make a super Diddy video soon)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gBDctEu8Hg <- Def. watch this one (I'm PMDepot)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzN-Uqihh5s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87G-nPP4Njo&list=PLovBMkMLex7xP-JgGCNJeai7iPd5hUKhe#t=72
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jn5spvHUGQo&list=UUC_duOivBOekU6LS3_8w25A#t=24

Then you actually play in a match/tournament or watch Junebug's/Seagull's play, and you see little of aerial peanut and its cancel; because aerial peanut guns's angle isn't always useful and can put you in a bad position over the grounded shot. The cancel gives you more of a reason to go aerial and approach and stuff, like Falco's. But unlike Falco's it's more fair. And that's all how I want it, the peanut needs to suck (catchable, breakable by fox lasers), the angle needs to suck: and then it allows you to have such a nice unique movement emphasizing tool without being over-powering. It's one of the only movement intricate projectiles left, with Pits arrow and such just making the characters more or less stationary; compared to Falco who has tons of intricate platform utility to master and stuff. And I wouldn't feel any better with being replaced by a land cancel or something; don't want just Melee mechanics alone being repeated for another decade when we already got a perfect one right here.

 

[4tlas]

Thank you very much for responding Magus. I greatly appreciate you sharing the thought process behind the decisions. I still have more questions though, if you don't mind.

1) Why the Din-boomerang mechanic at all? Why is it now clanked on shield (I understand most projectiles are, but Link's return boomerang is not, for example)
2) I understand that making the Dins faster at first helps her midrange game, which was an odd weakness before. Im not sure why this design decision was made though. Also why take away the flexibility of placement?
3) Aerial nayru's being different from grounded is fine. Why outright remove the invuln?
4) Why remove the supersweetspot entirely? Was it not possible to rework the hitboxes and keep it?

 

[DarkStarStorm]

Been meaning to reply to some things mentioned in here for a while. Sorry for the wall of purp but there's a lot of quotes! lol.
----------------------------------------

This was something I had considered since it'd be most similar to being able to waveland in either direction but it looked pretty silly in my head (moreso in the air), as reversibility on secondary actions like Zard's 3.02 glide ending looks especially strange (one of the reasons it uses its own animation in 3.5), and didn't pursue coding it. It may actually look alright on just the ground-ground cancel though, since it's so short and she's invisible before it instead of seeing the previous animation. Being able to edge cancel off the front side of platforms from way offstage for recovery if applied to all of the up-b endings sounds kind of nuts anyway.
----------------------------------------

One of the reasons for the activation cooldown after it connects with something is so you can't reactively blow it up on someone that clanked it, hitting them with the explosion and/or the return hit when it loops back, and instead need to anticipate it (both the activation and timed explosions are non-clank). If placed above shield height they wouldn't really be able to do too much about it without a clanking projectile or sword, which is kind of strong for what it is. Another reason was that the stationary+activate+return combo that often occurred from a single hit did somewhat questionable amounts of damage. There's probably some kind of configuration between whether clank/shield/hit activates the cooldown if any, size of activation hitbox to more reasonably space it to avoid the on hit cooldown, and damage/KB that's both fair but not as limiting/unintuitive.

I had originally tried a refresh rate on the return hitbox, but in order to make it not rehit right after it is clanked/blocked/hits I needed to have it at the better part of a second which was long enough that without some sort of indication that it can hit them again was pretty strange. The return hit currently refreshing whenever it's reactivated is pretty straightforward for both players though. Kind of ties into the above with on hit cooldown, but maybe something like the flame going out for a bit on clank/shield/hit could serve as both the re-activation cooldown and self refreshing return hitbox indicators.
----------------------------------------

That happens because there's an interrupt right after placing it specifically to call it back immediately but before it's interruptible normally rather than needing to wait out the entire ending then also go through the recall animation as well. I explain it here, and it'll require a side-b input whenever the 3.5 update patch comes out since that's been a common complaint. Didn't really have that issue myself since I already knew when the normal interrupt begins beforehand to be inputting other B moves out of it.
----------------------------------------

The wall thing in the changelog refers to the exit animation. In brawl/PM it cancels the vertical speed on exit and disables her gravity for a bit for whatever reason, so you need to aim higher than normal to reach the edge when going in an upwards direction. The change there preserves some of the vertical so you slide up the wall a bit, like if you up-b into the underside of FD you'll slide up and into ledge range. Takes some adjustment to aim lower if used to how brawl had it, but an improvement overall once you do imo.

The ledge grab range is indeed smaller though, but that's a cast-wide change. Ledge grab box mechanics were completely overhauled to work like melee as it gives more consistent vertical sweetspot timing along with adjustable distance from character to top of the ledgebox: Reverse range matches front instead of huge, horizontal range varies based on how far they reach out while vertical is fixed and sweetspot size can be adjusted by how high they are in the animation, instead of like brawl where horizontal being fixed and vertical is offset from the bottom of the character forcing upright positioning during an animation to have poor sweetspots and curled up having huge ones. When the cast had new offsets to use the new mechanics they were done leaner and more similar to melee.

Spoiler

I actually did happen to fix that dumb wall snag that set Y speed to 0 while traveling if you were touching a wall as you disappear about a week ago though. Not only will you be able to safely hold up while touching a vertical wall, you can ride the wall at an angle as long as it's not at more than 45 degrees with respect to the collision (hitting a collision too head on triggers the exit as it always has since melee).

----------------------------------------

It does snap onto platforms, but rather than passing it and then ADing down onto it to land you need to input B right before you would pass it. The way it works is the start of the cancel lifts the bottom of her collision box up a lot so she can get 'above' it (she's still invisible at this point), then when she reappears it shifts back down and can trigger the landing. Technically it's a bit faster to get up onto platforms (same timing would have you AD too early and miss), but the extra lag that's there on reappearance atm that shouldn't be mostly cancels that out. Currently it's pretty strict timing to snap onto platforms while going vertically compared to more horizontally which is pretty easy, which was true for AD as well, but overshooting a shorten is a lot worse than a sloppy AD landing.

Moving platforms have weird collision detection in general in brawl. No clue why it gets hung up on them.
----------------------------------------

The way it turns at any time it's in motion is just whichever way is the shortest turn to face Zelda. When it starts to move it begins in the direction it was moving when placed (indicated by the little fire trail while stationary), so if you imagine a line drawn along the direction it's heading at any given moment, it will turn one way or the other depending on which side of that line Zelda lies (assuming it's linked and she's visible). The turn towards the shortest angle to Zelda is what allows it to circle around her if charged. If it's going in a clockwise circle it's because it keeps seeing Zelda on its right side of the line and turning slightly to its right every frame, but not sharply enough to actually get to her so it ends up looping around.
----------------------------------------

The way Din's cast works in 3.5 is it preserves downward fall speed (different), cancels out upward (unchanged), and accelerates downward until reaching top speed extra slowly (unchanged). So if used while going up or at the peak of a jump you stop then slowly accelerate downwards as you would previously, but if you're falling that speed carries into it. Perhaps a bit weird, but when I was being rewarded for getting hit high upwards/recovering with being able to safely get a full charge big Din's into play without using a DJ it felt pretty dirty considering the extra utility the fat ones have while moving. You still can do that on some stages, but you need to use the DJ first to cancel out the fall speed and then start it at the peak of the jump, so it's a lot more risky (though her airdodge is much better in 3.5 since you can fastfall it early, same with Peach, which makes it more useful for getting down than normal ADs). Note that during strong KB you're actually falling at full speed the entire time, just the KB is stronger and making you appear to be moving upwards overall, so if you use it directly out of KB it keeps the full fall speed and is just like as if you did an aerial out of it of something.

Good opportunity to explain the kick differences I suppose:

Top is 3.02 and bottom 3.5. The green/blue middle sized ones on the body all have the same damage/KB, the tiny red one on the toe on 3.02 is the supersweetspot, and the largest yellow/orange on the toe on 3.02/3.5 are the 'melee' sweetspots. The initial 'melee' hitbox is stronger in 3.5 and roughly similar to melee kick's KB, with f-air keeping the slightly lower trajectory it's always had in PM to be a little more effective than melee f-air and b-air being pretty much the same KB as melee.

When multiple hitboxes connect on something at the same time the one that gets used depends on their priority, which is just the ID number used on the hitbox (lower ID = more priority).
3.02: Blue > Red > Green> Yellow
-Supersweet: Connect Red without connecting with Blue
-Sweet(-): Connect Yellow without connecting with any other hitbox
-Flub: Connect any part of Blue, or connect Green without connecting with Red
3.5: Blue > Green > Orange
-Sweet(+): Connect Orange without connecting with Blue/Green
-Flub: Connect any part of Blue/Green
The lines I put on there show the strictly horizontal spacing to land each hit, though it assumes you're hitting a big fat hurtbox. On 3.02 supersweet hit you usually can't get as close as that inner red line and connect the Red hitbox unless you're hitting a large character's torso or something, and being as small as it was wasn't always reliable when aiming for other parts and tended to whiff smaller moving hurtboxes like arms/legs or them simply being slightly off the Z axis during the animation.

Ledgehop kick works, just need to not jump as far in if they are right on the edge, since the inside of the orange range is further out than how close you could be and land the red supersweet hit before.

The higher KB and slightly more damage at long range on 3.5 kicks is a little better for tight combos that there wasn't enough stun to get close enough to connect the super on their torso to guarantee that hitbox connects, and arguably same or possibly better in neutral (not as clear there since there's both positives/negatives on each for that purpose). The blue leg/hip hitbox no longer needing to regulate the supersweet spacing and being back on her hip gives more body coverage but doesn't matter in most cases. Obviously quite a lot worse for lenient combos where the super toe was guaranteed. Though loss of super toes sounds worse I can see 3.5 kicks being a net neutral/positive in some matchups.

This wasn't a change directly to d-throw itself, but all throws in 3-3.02 released higher than normal due to a bug, in this case leaving them in the air for a bit longer before reaching the ground. The KB itself is the same, but instead of the KB starting from above floor height they get sent up from closer to the floor like in 2.6 and prior.

This is confusing to me and you're not the first to mention an "u-air nerf", but the explosion is completely unchanged. The little electric flub on her arm before the explosion comes out is what's different, and is stronger so it begins comboing much earlier and hit confirms better, though the angle is not as vertical so autocancel u-air flub doesn't become a free easy hit at any damage regardless of DI.

Speaking of which, I don't think I've ever seen anyone else use it despite being there since demo 1.0, but u-air autocancels (goes into 4 frame empty landing) any time before the explosion comes out so if you land between when her hand sparks and the fireball you get a nice vertical extremely low landing lag combo aerial that's also safe on block though very short range and requires a particular timing. I do it out of shorthop by fastfalling->c-stick u-air nearly at the same time at the peak of the SH. Also works off platforms with run off/drop through/shield platform drop FF->u-air, though on higher ones you'll need to delay the u-air slightly.
----------------------------------------

I do! =D I've used Zelda as a third main/secondary at a competitive level for a good 8+ years or so since melee (though the vast majority of that is with melee Zelda), playing some of the better players in NJ with the character, and also against her quite a lot in all games as I've known Ryoko for even longer (prob where I got the idea to pick her up in the first place I think). This is where I would say I'm pretty good with her, but considering I don't think I have a recorded match that isn't 3+ years old and bad or entered a singles event at much of anything I've gone to in recent years feel free to doubt me on that claim, lol. Also, that isn't what happened, and they were not shut out. Zhime left the team on the day it became clear her development would start operating like every other character in the game (weighted input based on player skill/knowledge of the character from the team as a whole) and not 1-2 individuals having absolute authority. The only actual changes in consideration at the time were nayru's air invincibility/love jump, adjusting GFX on din's while placed to more accurately indicate the potential range of the explosions, and normalizing SDI multipliers on single hits and adjusting multihits to something between 0x and what's functional, so I doubt the changes being discussed at the time were why he decided to leave.

I guess you could say I 'lead' Zelda development once again with Ryoko mostly uninterested in the game for a while now, and no I didn't just go changing stuff randomly if you were wondering =P. Other than some 3.5 themed SDI/KB scaling/etc adjustments that probably look kind of random if not looking at other similar things done to the rest of the cast, one of the goals I tried to accomplish in 3.5 was to improve her midrange options and immediate range in neutral some (wavelands, bit more reach on dash attack, din's fast enough to be usable in neutral, etc) which I felt was never really addressed, so reactionary play with characters that can abuse it well is less profitable. Also ties in to the 'fun' to fight issue imo since I don't find matchups heavily revolving around a highly stacked neutral that is predominately nothing mixed with occasional assertion of an actual threat from the position (can't literally never attack after all or you can't bait out actions to punish) to be very enjoyable from either side of the matchup.
----------------------------------------

Not entirely sure what you mean, as I didn't change my mind on something. The idea of shortening with B didn't occur to me back in pre demo 1.0, and even if it did the way the platform snap works wouldn't have worked back then anyway with the static landing detection. I liked the concept of improving her mobility options with up-b, so I came up with the AD cancel. Enough so that I included it despite needing to tack on additional weirdness where you needed to be touching the ground at the end of startup so that it didn't make her recovery ridiculously stupid.

Whenever the kinks get worked out on it, the shorten with B becomes a way to get that same basic utility without the touch-ground-during-startup-so-you-can-cancel-into-a-directional-airdodge-while-you're-invisible aspect... Kind of speaks for itself I feel as an obvious design improvement whether spacies' side-b cancels exist or not, even if there are some differences in what you can/can't do with each approach to that end.

Teleshort does not always snap onto platforms. The aerial version is particularly inept at doing so. One thing that I have against Teleshort is the reduced mobility. With Teledashing, you could always use the waveland backwards OR forwards. This allowed you to edge-cancel it (backwards), and just give it a lot less predictability. At the very least, you should be able to direct which direction you move when you reappear.

Nayru's is the worst though, losing most forms of Nayru techs makes it really easy for the opponent to keep her in the air. Nayru's used to be her anti-juggle move. While the Love Jump and Diamond Dive still exist, they are practically useless because of the lack of it's previous invulnerability. Don't get me wrong, I actually wanted the invulnerability gone, but as a trade-off and not a straight-up nerf. I wanted the move to gain armor instead of invulnerability. It would be a great anti-juggle (provided true Diamond Diving returned), but it would phase out at middle to higher percents. The grounded version would be punishable by any character with a well ranged grab. It is a MUCH better alternative to completely phasing out Nayru's as a defensive option.

Dins? Dins is great! I love the change! It gives her respect from characters like Ganondorf who didn't give a care about old Dins. She can camp without being untouchable, and I commend the PMDT for this change. I commend them ONLY for that change to Zelda.

 

[otheusrex]

While we have your attention, Magus, can I ask what were the reasons behind the jab angle change? and the incomplete normalization of her grab? To explain for people who don't understand the changes yet

Jab: 3.02 used to have a set 55 degree KB angle, which popped people up for a followup in most situations
3.5 jab has a sakurai angle, meaning (unless I'm mistaken how it works) that on grounded opponents it sends them
straight backwards, and against aerial opponents it sends them outward at low percents and gradually higher to a max of around 50 degrees at high percents. This change really removed most of jab's usefulness for starting combos.
Grab: 3.02 used to be frame 9, which was 2 frames slower than most grabs, but as a trade off it had an extra active frame
that made the grab linger slightly longer, and was bigger than most non tether grabs.
3.5 jab was reduced in size and the extra active frame was removed, to compensate it was made 1 frame faster on
startup, so it's only 1 frame slower than most grabs now. I'm wondering why they didn't just make it frame 7 like all
the other 'normal' grabs?​

Also,

Speaking of which, I don't think I've ever seen anyone else use it despite being there since demo 1.0, but u-air autocancels (goes into 4 frame empty landing) any time before the explosion comes out so if you land between when her hand sparks and the fireball you get a nice vertical extremely low landing lag combo aerial that's also safe on block though very short range and requires a particular timing.

I used to ask this as well, but after Ryoko explained to me that you'd pretty much have to be insane to regularly go for such an unsafe option, I reexamined its utility. If you hit with it, sure, it's very useful, but the problem lies in just how reverse disjointed the hitbox is (the hitbox is quite small and completely enveloped within zelda's hurtboxes). This means that to land it, you need to be completely on top of someone else, which, it should go without saying, is a horrible way to approach someone. There are a couple other moves with reverse disjointed moves, however, such as sonic's down B, squirtle's side B, and (if I'm not mistaken?) falco's side B. The reason why these moves can get away with having reverse disjoint is that they happen with such a burst of speed as to keep the opponent from easily fending them off on reaction. Obviously, Zelda isn't going to be surprising anyone with her super fast mobility, so this doesn't work for her.

Alright so scratch that idea; you won't be approaching with autocancel upair flubs(or sparkle hits as I like to call them) in​

neutral, so then how about using it as a followup? You only do a sparkle hit when they are still in hitstun. Makes sense, except that Zelda is so slow that it requires considerable hitstun for her to combo opponents, which also means that opponents go flying away and out of her reach. One exception to this is Upsmash since gravity often enables opponents to still be in hitstun while they're descending back down to her, but if the point of doing a sparkle hit is to autocancel it on landing, then the opponent needs to be on or very near the ground and not up in the air.

The only real way to get a sparkle hit is with a read, possibly out of a tech chase situation. But Zelda's slow air speed​

make this a hard read and there are simply better options for her to do in those situations anyways.

Frankly, I think sparkle hit is very cool, and extremely stylish, so I'm glad the autocancel wasn't removed and that you actually improved it by giving it more Knockback. I also think the function of the autocancel sparkle hit gives her something close to the way most characters' have a shffl aerial option to start combos; this without her having to rely solely on landcanceling nayru's love for an aerial to ground conversion. It's just that without decent disjoint, it just isn't worth the risk for a sluggish character to put themselves right on top of an enemy. If your idea was to improve it's utility, i'd suggest making the hitbox bigger, unless you're really committed to the sparkle hit being only for risky styles.

About the new Telecancel. I was really skeptical about hearing about it since I used teledashing a TON before, but I'm pleasantly surprised how much of its utility is the same as before with ground telecancels. (it actually seems like she exists a bit sooner than she did before? am I right about that?) My only concerns about telecancel is that A) teleporting to a platform is pretty hard, though maybe after the accidental 2 frame delay on reappearance is removed it will make it a little easier, and B) I really wish that exiting from the air was the same speed as from the ground. It just seems like it would be nice to have the timing be identical, especially since the whole Up B redesign was partially an attempt at greater consistency. If you must, I'd be ok with a compromise in between 22 and 33 frames, but I really think 22 frames is still easy enough to punish to keep Zelda from getting a free teleport out of danger with an opponent on her tail, and I suspect that's the real reasoning behind why her aerial teleport is slower to exit. They already added even more ending lag on her aerial teleport so it's not like it's an overly safe move anyways.

Finally, in regards to new dins, I get the trade off for giving up stage control options for a better mid range option. It's mostly because of the new dins that despite my initial misgivings, I still find 3.5 zelda a lot funner to play than 3.02, so thank you. I'm still not certain if Zelda didn't accidentally lose the ability to compete in high level play, but I'm definitely willing to give this new direction a chance and let 3.5 Zelda have the space she needs for everyone to realize what should stay and what needs fixing. This whole build is more or less an experiment so I don't expect everything to be perfect already; it took the previous concept many builds to refine into a nearly finished design.

I await your response most eagerly!

 

[ECHOnce]

Speaking of which, I don't think I've ever seen anyone else use it despite being there since demo 1.0, but u-air autocancels (goes into 4 frame empty landing) any time before the explosion comes out so if you land between when her hand sparks and the fireball you get a nice vertical extremely low landing lag combo aerial that's also safe on block though very short range and requires a particular timing. I do it out of shorthop by fastfalling->c-stick u-air nearly at the same time at the peak of the SH. Also works off platforms with run off/drop through/shield platform drop FF->u-air, though on higher ones you'll need to delay the u-air slightly.

Actually @ DarkStarStorm has pointed it out around the social and here on the boards quite a bit, but it's a bit unexplored by the majority it seems.

I think I know the answer to this, but can we get some insight as to why Love Jump was removed? It was a nice tool to have, and was really useful, but also really punishable, or so I thought. I was really bummed to see it go, and even more bummed when speculating the reasons why. Also, why exactly was the intangibility on aerial Nayru's removed? That one I really have no idea on.

Thanks Magus

Teleshort does not always snap onto platforms. The aerial version is particularly inept at doing so. One thing that I have against Teleshort is the reduced mobility. With Teledashing, you could always use the waveland backwards OR forwards. This allowed you to edge-cancel it (backwards), and just give it a lot less predictability. At the very least, you should be able to direct which direction you move when you reappear.

Nayru's is the worst though, losing most forms of Nayru techs makes it really easy for the opponent to keep her in the air. Nayru's used to be her anti-juggle move. While the Love Jump and Diamond Dive still exist, they are practically useless because of the lack of it's previous invulnerability. Don't get me wrong, I actually wanted the invulnerability gone, but as a trade-off and not a straight-up nerf. I wanted the move to gain armor instead of invulnerability. It would be a great anti-juggle (provided true Diamond Diving returned), but it would phase out at middle to higher percents. The grounded version would be punishable by any character with a well ranged grab. It is a MUCH better alternative to completely phasing out Nayru's as a defensive option.

Dins? Dins is great! I love the change! It gives her respect from characters like Ganondorf who didn't give a care about old Dins. She can camp without being untouchable, and I commend the PMDT for this change. I commend them ONLY for that change to Zelda.

DSS, ik you've said Love Jumps and Diamond Dives had survived in 3.5 before, but I still haven't really been able to pull any love jumps off yet; I've gotten a weird, more horizontal diamond dive thingy off, but that's really it. Could you post a vid for the rest of us to reference by any chance? Doesn't have to be anymore than a minute or two just demonstrating it...really missing my LJs > .< aha.

But if your 3.5 LJs are still shorter than 3.02's, then @ Karmaic Avidity the main reason I would assume for LJ "removal"/nerf would've been as a recovery nerf; Zelda could recover from well off-screen to the side without much effort if used properly.

 

[Kaeldiar]

Regarding the up-air autocancel...it's a high reward, but an even higher risk. It's very difficult to safely land, especially in neutral, but you get a great deal of follow-ups, because of the high hitstun when compared to your endlag. You can use it for a very heavy punish on platform tech chases and get just about anything you could want out of it (grab, f-smash, and up-tilt are usually what I go for).

 

[LonVoen]

 

[drsusredfish]

----------------------------------------
This was something I had considered since it'd be most similar to being able to waveland in either direction but it looked pretty silly in my head (moreso in the air), as reversibility on secondary actions like Zard's 3.02 glide ending looks especially strange (one of the reasons it uses its own animation in 3.5), and didn't pursue coding it. It may actually look alright on just the ground-ground cancel though, since it's so short and she's invisible before it instead of seeing the previous animation. Being able to edge cancel off the front side of platforms from way offstage for recovery if applied to all of the up-b endings sounds kind of nuts anyway.
----------------------------------------

agreed as long as the ground one can go both directions its old utility is still possible albeit more difficult.

...but maybe something like the flame going out for a bit on clank/shield/hit could serve as both the re-activation cooldown and self refreshing return hitbox indicators.

I'm one who would like more hits but an indicator of cool down time would be good too. Go for it. a cool down smoke trail would look neat.

The manual detonation should also be looked at. For dins manual detonation to be more effective it can either be bigger or the moving hit box can be smaller because the moving hit box usually hits even though you are trying to hit the manual detonation. If you compare the size of the detonation hit box and the moving hit box (overlaping them since the inside of the detonated hitbox can be ignored) its like trying to hit a lightning kick from across the stage. if the opponents too close you get the weak moving hit to far you just miss, then opponent gets to block the din keeps moving and it hits their shield then you can't detonate it again. The manual detonation hitbox is really only good when its at its largest.

This could all just be a miss timing issue but manually detonating with the intent to attack with anything other than the larger dins seems like a waste of time.

TLDR: manual detonate needs to be more use full with smaller dins by either making the moving hit box smaller or the detonated hit box bigger.

 

[DarkStarStorm]

Actually @ DarkStarStorm has pointed it out around the social and here on the boards quite a bit, but it's a bit unexplored by the majority it seems.



DSS, ik you've said Love Jumps and Diamond Dives had survived in 3.5 before, but I still haven't really been able to pull any love jumps off yet; I've gotten a weird, more horizontal diamond dive thingy off, but that's really it. Could you post a vid for the rest of us to reference by any chance? Doesn't have to be anymore than a minute or two just demonstrating it...really missing my LJs > .< aha.

But if your 3.5 LJs are still shorter than 3.02's, then @ Karmaic Avidity the main reason I would assume for LJ "removal"/nerf would've been as a recovery nerf; Zelda could recover from well off-screen to the side without much effort if used properly.

The Love Jump ONLY works if you b-reverse it. It will look identical to the new Diamond Dive except that you will travel it bit further, go faster, and a little bit higher.
I'm fine if the Love Jump doesn't make a return. It was nice but not nearly as useful as the Diamond Dive. Should Nayru's be graced by middle armor then I think that it will be well accepted by the entire community.

As for the Sparkle, I actually believe that it gives Zelda a 0-death on Spacies. It grants you a side-smash finisher to the up-smash combo on them.
Example

While I did mess up the combo, you can see how the Sparkle can be integrated into the up-smash combo. You can also see how much more movement Teledashing gives Zelda as opposed to Teleshort.

 

[Reidlos Toof]

I think my biggest problem with 3.5 Zelda is the arbitrary reversal of the speed on Din's Fire. I really liked the way it started slow and got fast. It gave her the control at close range to use it for combos, and the speed at long range to not simply be outperformed by extremely agile opponents. The way it is now feels so neutered that I find myself simply no longer using it. Most of the time it's just going to do the same damage as a Mario fireball with far less spammability.

As I've said before, the B-canceled Farore's also seems to just have been designed solely on the dev's preference. There's no reason why the block button, which every Zelda main was already used to pressing for canceling, couldn't have been used to cancel without giving air dodge momentum or invincibility. For that matter, there's really no reason why the air-dodgeable ground started version couldn't have been kept and just the air started version given the new B cancel.

There's also the fact that, in my opinion, the startup of Farore's is just ridiculously too long. Considering that a character like Diddy can get a far longer and safer recovery for the same amount of startup time, and Mewtwo can travel nearly the same distance with momentum, and has zero startup, and can act out of his teleport without even the need for a cancel, Zelda has apparently given the worst of everything.

 

[Rizner]

Hey Magus, I see lots of technical explanations, but I'm more curious about goals of or reasons for some changes. Then, I'm also curious if you feel those goals were met.

Mostly, in respect to dins and telecancel.

 

[Magus420]

Hopefully with this I've covered most questions people have because I'm really slow at writing yet tend to go into too much detail at times, lol. Will need to focus on working on patch stuff soon though.

I think I know the answer to this, but can we get some insight as to why Love Jump was removed? It was a nice tool to have, and was really useful, but also really punishable, or so I thought. I was really bummed to see it go, and even more bummed when speculating the reasons why. Also, why exactly was the intangibility on aerial Nayru's removed? That one I really have no idea on.

Thanks Magus

One of the reasons was its recovery distance as mentioned (and she'd also be gaining the telecancel option and her melee airdodge properties in 3.5), but also being caused by the same bug we've created by accident and subsequently fixed in many other places on the rest of the cast didn't help to justify keeping the lovejump/dive out of hitstun in an update with toning down recoveries and cutting back on things that can be used to get around positional advantage as some of its goals.

To elaborate on the bug involved, Brawl has some strange mechanic in place that I can only imagine is a bandaid fix for a larger problem (likely because you could IASA during hitstun and some of the momentum commands also erase KB for some dumb reason) that they didn't care to properly address where if your current knockback is > 0.2 many momentum altering instructions get ignored completely unless a specific bit was set before it (LA-Bit[57]). In Zelda's case the move in all smash games is supposed to reset her jump/fall speed (not KB, as that's a separate force), and then the really low fall acceleration during the special makes it floatier than normal fall. If KB is > 0.2 when used that reset fails and instead you either plummet with no jump into it or mega jump by having that low acceleration applied during a jump force normally under the effects of her default gravity. Some examples of the numerous "___ behaves strangely out of hitstun" that've popped up in PM development and slipped into releases are airdodge -> item throw/z-air going insanely far, Mario's down-b, Diddy's up-b and others I'm likely forgetting dropping like a rock, and in 3.5 Zard's glide attack not lunging forward. That said, even if it had not been fixed on nayru's specifically in 3.5 it would have no longer happened whenever the root of the problem is able to be fixed globally to remove that dumb knockback check that shouldn't exist in the first place.

While the vertical always resets properly regardless of KB now, there is still the odd effect which is now made more apparent where the initial horizontal multiplier for the move derps out if > 0.2 KB and actually speeds you up instead of scaling down to 0.75x (it does 1.75x... seriously wtf brawl lol). I think this is what some have referred to when saying LJ still exists in 3.5. If you jump to a side when hitstun ends and nayru's it propels you horizontally faster than normal, though not much further total than just jumping since you lose speed towards the end and don't have air mobility during the move.

As for the air invincibility, the combination of having both the inv on startup and land cancel on ending on the air version was pretty heavily disliked, so the air version was left to be the primarily offensively capable one and grounded defensive. Between the size reduction from 3.0, startup reduced slightly, and the inv being removed it ends up more similar to n-air, but I think the momentum altering properties still do plenty to keep its use much different. She does get a much more useful airdodge in 3.5 to help her out when up in the air though, which goes into a normal air state on frame 20 instead of the usual 30 which has it carry over a bit more momentum at the end and allows fastfalling much earlier than most characters.
----------------------------------------

Thank you very much for responding Magus. I greatly appreciate you sharing the thought process behind the decisions. I still have more questions though, if you don't mind.

1) Why the Din-boomerang mechanic at all? Why is it now clanked on shield (I understand most projectiles are, but Link's return boomerang is not, for example)
2) I understand that making the Dins faster at first helps her midrange game, which was an odd weakness before. Im not sure why this design decision was made though. Also why take away the flexibility of placement?
3) Aerial nayru's being different from grounded is fine. Why outright remove the invuln?
4) Why remove the supersweetspot entirely? Was it not possible to rework the hitboxes and keep it?

1) It's something to give additional utility to a single din's that's a short enough commitment to use against characters she has the most difficulty in neutral against without requiring her to have already won neutral in the first place in order to safely place it (those same characters were also often the best at preventing a 2nd/3rd from being placed as well as safely dealing with existing ones!). To get an idea of the speed improvement, it was hitbox as early as 46 and 59 total (ground only. ending in the air was something even higher) before, and in 3.5 is 33 earliest hitbox and 46 total. More rounded effectiveness among the cast along with new tricks to explore basically.

Link's return boomerang is disarmed on shield though. Once shielded it can't hit you again (though you need to go out of your way to try to catch up to it), same with din's except you can refresh it by reactivating it. Is it like actually disappearing entirely when blocked? If so that's not supposed to be happening. The bizarre interaction specific to shields compared to how hit/clank worked before 3.5 was neither intended nor liked by much of anyone on the DT and only going to stick around as long as we didn't know how to fix it btw, so that was less of a 3.5 design choice and more an inevitability.

2) The higher initial speed helps to more quickly place them at a distance, complementing the return functionality as well as more opportunities to be used to continue pressure after things. It also reflects the return speed, which has the overall more useful slower movement by charging it. That said, I think I might agree that the minimum distance you can place them may be a bit too far from her to help as intended against good dashdances since I think if fast characters move in quickly enough when they see you cast it ends up a bit behind them even if retreated, and while placing it may now be safeish to do and not directly punishable there's very little if any time to act before they reach you, which includes calling it back in to help the tight spot you're now in. If it could be placed just a bit closer without affecting the move elsewhere so they can't ignore it on the way out in that situation you'd get more out of giving up that stage position in order to place it.

You can see what I mean here where CF is at DDish range and moves in 1/4 second into the side-b (she flashes red on startup making it pretty distinct, though it doesn't show up with hitboxes on). Compared it to 3.02 as well, and was surprised at how awful it apparently was at preventing them from just running in despite being able to place them so close because of how long it takes to get the hitbox out. Hard to actually see the hitbox since it's so tiny compared to the GFX, but it doesn't start hitting until that 2nd pause when CF is already next to her. Kind of shows just how unsafe it was previously, and didn't need nearly CF speeds to get in when trying to place one.

Also, not part of your question here but related, but I think you overstate how good 3.02 din's actually was at long range (possibly because it slowing down makes it feel slower at reaching longer ranges than it really is), as well as the relevancy of such long range exchanges in general. Was curious myself exactly how quick they were to reach different distances, and went ahead and compared that as well:

Old din's only begins to reach somewhere faster when nearing full FD length spacing between players (~100% edge to edge length of BF and ~90% DL), which for the most part only really comes up in a theoretical full stage camp scenario to determine which player has less to gain by staying that far away and is going to want to prevent them from having that much space to begin with, and will never have trouble doing so, even if they're the least mobile character in the game against the fastest as it's simply way too much of any stage. Ultimately, whether the onus is on Zelda or the opponent to do this it comes back to ranges where old din's was too slow to safely use against a good portion of the cast anyway without already having some control by having existing ones up. In cases where they benefit both by keeping her at a distance and have the mobility/stage size to help them do that, having an improved midrange game becomes even more important for preventing them from getting around her and reclaiming stage position or punishing her attempts to do so, and being more able to quickly and safely while within a relevant range of them plant it to say aid in covering the platform option or something helps there.

3) Talked about this in above reply to Karmaic Avidity ^^

4) Why have supersweetspots on them in the first place =P They could have been reworked to be not quite as extreme in KB/hitlag/etc, but at that point why even keep them when there was a supersweetspot, a sweetspot, a... tartspot(?), and a flub on a 4 frame duration static kick animation, and the supersweet and sweet then become more similar. Many felt it added needless variance with its half the size of rest hitbox that had as much to do with how noodly the target character is as it did user precision to make contact with it, and missing often just meant landing a hit that's also quite powerful itself. As just my own opinion, as someone who never touched Zelda in brawl there's some bias for melee kicks as I like having the full strength on spaced kicks for the many characters she doesn't have good setups into deep kicks, and also prefer the feel of the high but still fluid hitlag.
----------------------------------------

Teleshort does not always snap onto platforms. The aerial version is particularly inept at doing so. One thing that I have against Teleshort is the reduced mobility. With Teledashing, you could always use the waveland backwards OR forwards. This allowed you to edge-cancel it (backwards), and just give it a lot less predictability. At the very least, you should be able to direct which direction you move when you reappear.

Are you sure you aren't just mistiming it? Maybe turn on debug + collision display and give a specific example where it doesn't work properly? Air version wouldn't be any worse at it, as the movement during each while invisible is identical. The difference in startup on air/ground though does mean you need to get a feel for when they each disappear and start to move rather than going by the timing between starting up-b to canceling. There's about a 2 frame window when going straight up/down and ~6 frames when travelling at the most shallow angle since how fast you're moving vertically affects how long you're within range of snapping onto it for.

Not sure if you're just seconding the idea, but having reversibility on the cancel exactly like you're saying came up in my previous post.

Nayru's is the worst though, losing most forms of Nayru techs makes it really easy for the opponent to keep her in the air. Nayru's used to be her anti-juggle move. While the Love Jump and Diamond Dive still exist, they are practically useless because of the lack of it's previous invulnerability. Don't get me wrong, I actually wanted the invulnerability gone, but as a trade-off and not a straight-up nerf. I wanted the move to gain armor instead of invulnerability. It would be a great anti-juggle (provided true Diamond Diving returned), but it would phase out at middle to higher percents. The grounded version would be punishable by any character with a well ranged grab. It is a MUCH better alternative to completely phasing out Nayru's as a defensive option.

I really don't feel her susceptibility to juggles in 3.5 is unreasonable for her fall speed at all imo, and doesn't need nayru's to also provide anti-juggle properties. She has a DJ like anyone else, (in 3.5) the best airdodge in the game, a situationally helpful up-b, 2nd lowest non-fastfall/comboable fall speed, the FF speed of characters considerably more comboable than her, and average horizontal air speed/mobility. If you aren't yet making use of the changes to her airdodge in 3.5 you really should be, as Peach/Zelda's princess-tier ADs in melee are great and usable to get around stuff in far more situations than other dodges, and PM Zelda's large increase on her FF speed makes that early FFability on it even better. About it potentially using armor instead, despite it being inferior to inv, armor generates more salt from people as it confirms that they would have otherwise caught them and I can't really see that going over well especially on the aerial version when there's already enough distaste for the inv that was there.
----------------------------------------

While we have your attention, Magus, can I ask what were the reasons behind the jab angle change? and the incomplete normalization of her grab? To explain for people who don't understand the changes yet

Jab: 3.02 used to have a set 55 degree KB angle, which popped people up for a followup in most situations
3.5 jab has a sakurai angle, meaning (unless I'm mistaken how it works) that on grounded opponents it sends them
straight backwards, and against aerial opponents it sends them outward at low percents and gradually higher to a max of around 50 degrees at high percents. This change really removed most of jab's usefulness for starting combos.
Grab: 3.02 used to be frame 9, which was 2 frames slower than most grabs, but as a trade off it had an extra active frame
that made the grab linger slightly longer, and was bigger than most non tether grabs.
3.5 jab was reduced in size and the extra active frame was removed, to compensate it was made 1 frame faster on
startup, so it's only 1 frame slower than most grabs now. I'm wondering why they didn't just make it frame 7 like all
the other 'normal' grabs?​

Sakurai angle in melee/PM sends at 45 on an air target, and 44 on a ground target on KB stronger than around Falco's laser, so in this case it's 45 pretty much since either the multi hit will have them off the floor or they're CCing and not going anywhere anyway. I originally changed it back to 361 angle where it was a few versions ago mostly because it worked better for a jab 2 concept that I ended up scrapping (if you're curious, very long range jab that I couldn't get to look decent and had high potential for stupid/completely eliminating a previously large weakness rather than lessening it), but also because changing it from the standard 361 in the first place seems pretty unnecessary to me on something with effectively 6 frames of endlag on hit, and strikes me as part of what I view as the microtweak stat optimization creep the character has seen during the past couple releases over trying to address actual character flaws.

I haven't felt much of an overall difference in combos myself though from just the angle change itself. Comparing them directly it looks like needing to hit a little deeper for low damage f-tilt to reach at times if they don't DI, DI out when hitting with the outside stops working earlier with dash grab/attack/f-air but when up closer still lasts a decent while, and CC still prevents anything (but pretty safe at only -2 and decent push which the 361 techincally helps with). The largest changes in 3.5 on it however aren't from the angle but rather a global mechanic change that fixes a bug that made any non-tumble hit not cancel stun on landing if they were hit more than once in the air (supposed to only apply if the hits were 10+ frames apart where KB stacking applies). This affects her jab since the multihit triggered the bug by itself, and on the higher gravity characters they would just float on the floor in stun instead of landing. Mostly affects Fox with his 35% higher than any other character in the game gravity and lands pretty fast instead of plopping on the floor in front of her in stun for an extra 1/4 second to be hit by whatever, though you can usually get a well timed instant dash grab out during the end of the landing lag on no DI.

I went with the frame 8 grab (same as DK) because her range is pretty high up there in the cast and her friction is high as well. Zelda having strictly one of the best shieldgrabs in the game just doesn't feel right to me, with her historically having abysmal grab speed but better non-grab options than most. She has among the very best long range OoS options on both sides for things normally safe due to spacing with her kicks, a faster than normal shieldgrabs overhead and very short horizontal range u-smash OoS, and sometimes helpful up-b OoS that hits on 7 and covers the space inside of kick range.The range/friction keeps it better overall than many other shield grabs, just not >= in all aspects compared to them.

The reach wasn't reduced by any meaningful amount though (there are some tiny differences after some collisions were shifted around a bit). The collision edits were mainly reducing the inside ones on the body while leaving the exceptionally large ones at the hands, and redoing the unusual turn grab entirely, but again essentially the same horizontal reach on average.

Spoiler

I used to ask this as well, but after Ryoko explained to me that you'd pretty much have to be insane to regularly go for such an unsafe option, I reexamined its utility. If you hit with it, sure, it's very useful, but the problem lies in just how reverse disjointed the hitbox is (the hitbox is quite small and completely enveloped within zelda's hurtboxes). This means that to land it, you need to be completely on top of someone else, which, it should go without saying, is a horrible way to approach someone. There are a couple other moves with reverse disjointed moves, however, such as sonic's down B, squirtle's side B, and (if I'm not mistaken?) falco's side B. The reason why these moves can get away with having reverse disjoint is that they happen with such a burst of speed as to keep the opponent from easily fending them off on reaction. Obviously, Zelda isn't going to be surprising anyone with her super fast mobility, so this doesn't work for her.

Alright so scratch that idea; you won't be approaching with autocancel upair flubs(or sparkle hits as I like to call them) in​

neutral, so then how about using it as a followup? You only do a sparkle hit when they are still in hitstun. Makes sense, except that Zelda is so slow that it requires considerable hitstun for her to combo opponents, which also means that opponents go flying away and out of her reach. One exception to this is Upsmash since gravity often enables opponents to still be in hitstun while they're descending back down to her, but if the point of doing a sparkle hit is to autocancel it on landing, then the opponent needs to be on or very near the ground and not up in the air.

The only real way to get a sparkle hit is with a read, possibly out of a tech chase situation. But Zelda's slow air speed​

make this a hard read and there are simply better options for her to do in those situations anyways.

Frankly, I think sparkle hit is very cool, and extremely stylish, so I'm glad the autocancel wasn't removed and that you actually improved it by giving it more Knockback. I also think the function of the autocancel sparkle hit gives her something close to the way most characters' have a shffl aerial option to start combos; this without her having to rely solely on landcanceling nayru's love for an aerial to ground conversion. It's just that without decent disjoint, it just isn't worth the risk for a sluggish character to put themselves right on top of an enemy. If your idea was to improve it's utility, i'd suggest making the hitbox bigger, unless you're really committed to the sparkle hit being only for risky styles.

Taking another look at what I wrote it does sound like I was selling it harder than intended and as more than something neat that I just haven't seen people make use of, lol. Probably has the most potential involving platforms I think, both as a ground to platform combo extension on faster falling chars/platform techchase, and as a drop off from them since it cuts off most of the setup for it. Shield platform drop FF sparkle hit seems like a good punish on shielded pressure from under it, since I find it much easier to get that off quickly than a d-air out of shield drop. TBH though I do tend to forget trying to incorporate it into actual play myself compared to when messing around in training.

The hitbox was put on there before bbox hitbox view was ever a thing, so its range is a little weird. Could probably stand to be a bit larger and reach higher regardless since it's pretty far from her hand and still have no problems spacing for just the explosion as needed.

About the new Telecancel. I was really skeptical about hearing about it since I used teledashing a TON before, but I'm pleasantly surprised how much of its utility is the same as before with ground telecancels. (it actually seems like she exists a bit sooner than she did before? am I right about that?) My only concerns about telecancel is that A) teleporting to a platform is pretty hard, though maybe after the accidental 2 frame delay on reappearance is removed it will make it a little easier, and B) I really wish that exiting from the air was the same speed as from the ground. It just seems like it would be nice to have the timing be identical, especially since the whole Up B redesign was partially an attempt at greater consistency. If you must, I'd be ok with a compromise in between 22 and 33 frames, but I really think 22 frames is still easy enough to punish to keep Zelda from getting a free teleport out of danger with an opponent on her tail, and I suspect that's the real reasoning behind why her aerial teleport is slower to exit. They already added even more ending lag on her aerial teleport so it's not like it's an overly safe move anyways.

Not sure exactly what you mean by existing sooner, but both the AD and the shorten cancel on the frame you press it (shorten looks like it takes 2 frames but she's stopped and still invisible as part of the platform snap mechanic).

A) Mentioned it in my reply to DSS but there's roughly between a 2-6 frame window to get the platform snap depending on how vertically you're aimed, so doing it while going upwards is much harder to time. If I can adjust how it works so it results in even something like 3-5 instead I think it'd do a lot for vertical teleports, considering you're risking a lot of lag for missing them compared to a misplaced airdodge.

B) To clarify, which parts are you referring to? In the current release it's:
Ground Startup: Hit: 6-7; Total: 24
Air Startup: Hit: 7-9; Total: 32
Travel: Total: 19
Ground Ending (from ground/air): Hit: 1-2; Total: 21
Ground Cancel (from ground): Total: 2 invisible + 12 (supposed to be 2+10)
Ground Cancel (from air): Total: 2 invisible + 21 (undecided about making this 2+19 or not since it makes sense to have the part with animation match the normal 21 frame ending animation if anything)
Landing Lag (from air reappearance then landing): 30
----------------------------------------

DSS, ik you've said Love Jumps and Diamond Dives had survived in 3.5 before, but I still haven't really been able to pull any love jumps off yet; I've gotten a weird, more horizontal diamond dive thingy off, but that's really it. Could you post a vid for the rest of us to reference by any chance? Doesn't have to be anymore than a minute or two just demonstrating it...really missing my LJs > .< aha.

I brought it up in my reply to Karmaic Avidity, but while the vertical works the way it normally does regardless of knockback, you get a 1.75x horizontal multiplier on your existing speed when you use it instead of the normal 0.75x (tries to set it to 0 then add the 3/4 back in I guess and the set to 0 instruction is what fails to work properly if you have some KB left over still), which sounds like what you're seeing. To get the most horizontal speed from it you want to be at her max horizontal air speed of 0.98, which you can reach either with 17 frames of holding left/right (she accelerates by 0.06 per frame) after hitstun ends, or air jumping left/right which puts her immediately at 0.9 then holding that for 2+ more frames to hit max.

If you do DJ into it you lose out on any height you would have gained if you do it before the peak since it cancels the jump's vertical. On shorter knockbacks the KB clears too quickly and before you hit H top speed with just drift so if you want to use it there you need the DJ. For recovery though the KB lasts plenty long enough after hitstun ends to drift a bit first when you can begin to move then use it and save your jump for later. The horizontal boost effect is easy to see after Falco's shine or something at low damage (do the DJ into it in this case) since it's vertical and keeps you on camera.
----------------------------------------

The issue with her being able to hit sideB while din is unable to burst I assume is very hard if outright impossible to solve. You can't have the character check the status of her entity and react accordingly, can you? I have no idea how modding this game works so sorry if my input is useless!

I could probably disable side-b if it exists and is in cooldown, but since it activates partway into it when her arm is extended it wouldn't allow starting it early so it activates right as the cooldown ends. Even without that issue, with proper feedback to the player that it won't work during that period though I think it'd be fine. Links can empty throw their rang after all along with a few similar specials, it's just more clear for them when it won't do anything if they try using it compared to the way the activation cooldown currently works silently.

That's fantastic news, thanks! I assume this means you will actually be able to ride up a bit more of FD's side? As of right now there are instances where total distance traveled seems greatly reduced when it slides up inclines. Not sure if you're aware or curious, but here:

If you are traveling straight up for 'Start' then 'Actual Result' occurs and you miss the ledge instead of 'Expected' occurring. This may be my inability to eyeball the distance properly, but total distance traveled definitely feels reduced in this situation. You can work around it with an angle that doesn't 'slide' coupled with teleshort, but I'm curious about this oddity.

The thing that will be fixed in the bug patch is where it stops you from moving entirely with the up-b if touching a wall when you start to move, like if you jump into the wall on yoshi's story and try to teleport holding up or up and towards while touching it you go nowhere at all.

In the case of FD shortening it that's because there's part of the wall that's mostly horizontal and always going to be hit at the 45 angle or more when going upwards to make it go into the ending early. This is what the FD collisions look like. The E-F and J-I collisions are what cancel the teleport to go into the ending early when going upwards because you hit them too head on. The other wall slide change thing that's already in there in 3.5 where you keep going up a bit after reappearing actually helps there on FD since you reappear under the edge when you hit that part and now slide up enough to get in range to grab it unless you were pretty far under it to hit the inside part of that collision, while previously you'd reappear too low and just stop and die under that lip though the larger ledgegrab ranges before 3.5 made that not as bad as it would have been.
----------------------------------------

The manual detonation should also be looked at. For dins manual detonation to be more effective it can either be bigger or the moving hit box can be smaller because the moving hit box usually hits even though you are trying to hit the manual detonation. If you compare the size of the detonation hit box and the moving hit box (overlaping them since the inside of the detonated hitbox can be ignored) its like trying to hit a lightning kick from across the stage. if the opponents too close you get the weak moving hit to far you just miss, then opponent gets to block the din keeps moving and it hits their shield then you can't detonate it again. The manual detonation hitbox is really only good when its at its largest.

This could all just be a miss timing issue but manually detonating with the intent to attack with anything other than the larger dins seems like a waste of time.

TLDR: manual detonate needs to be more use full with smaller dins by either making the moving hit box smaller or the detonated hit box bigger.

After talking about the delay between starting the side-b to activate and when it actually communicates to begin the explosion when her arm is extended in my reply to LonVoen along with the flame going out while the hitbox goes away stuff, I came up with the idea of instead having it activate this sequence: flame goes out for a couple frames just before detonating -> stop + explosion -> re-ingnite, instead of the current stop + explosion -> re-ingnite. It'd be moving a little before the explosion without the return hitbox being there to hit them, so on uncharged ones where the space between the return hitbox and explosion is smallest it'd be compensated by the faster travel speed, while large ones would stay mostly the same. Going with hitbox sizes instead would make the larger ones unavoidably easier and to a larger degree as well since they all share the same hitbox data and are just scaled automatically by model size.