This character bothers me

[_LR_]

I love playing as Zelda in melee and also in this game, but I feel she is just so difficult to play in sm4sh. I'm doing pretty decent with her but I am just having such a tough time I feel like you just have to be so precise with all of her moves or you just get rekt Do i just have to keep playing as her over and over again or is she just this hard to play?

 

[Zylach]

Zelda's fairly difficult to play in this one. She's not purely reliant on her lightning kicks like she was in melee. It doesn't help that the sweetspot for her Lkicks has changed in every single game she's in. In this one, she's a lot more reliant on her quick attacks like jab and dtilt to start strings while punishing with her heavy hitting smash attacks. If you can punish with a Lkick, then that's especially good since they dish out a whopping 20%. This game also sees Zelda getting a lot more reward off of grab since she can actually grab opponents unlike brawl where she had the shortest tether grab/slowest basic grab in the game. In Sm4sh, Zelda has to be played patiently because she lacks approach options but is really good at punishing opponents. Furthermore, her low mobility and great OoS options mean she's gonna be stationary, sitting in shield a lot more than many other characters. Personally, I prefer outspacing characters with her jab and dtilt or using my nair if the opponent's aerial game isn't amazing then following those up with her improved combo game, nair>nair, nair>Lkick, dtilt>nair>Lkick, dtilt>uair, jab>dash attack, etc.

 

[ZombieBran]

It's natural. On the surface she seems worse than in Brawl and especially Melee. It took me a while to get past the extreme pessimism. I still drag Zelda for the low tier tr4sh she is, but at least now I enjoy playing as her!

 

[Tino]

I agree I did struggle when I played as her compared to Brawl. I kept playing her from time to time until I ultimately decided to drop her because she's isn't really working out for me anyways (actually that's not the main reason why I dropped her...) Doesn't mean you should drop her too. Just keep training with her and you should be alright.

 

[Hennet]

What I keep in mind when playing Zelda. If you lose as Zelda, that's okay; you were using Zelda. If you win as Zelda, you're a hero and your opponent should question there life choices.

 

[MageofSymphonia]

Hey, keep playing as her. I main her especially in tournaments. It's hard especially with all the Fox, Rosalina, Diddy and Shieks out there, but the satisfaction of winning against them with what is now arguably considered the worst character in the game. I do agree that she has a very high learning curve since she demands a better understanding of the fundamentals of the game. But I feel that by playing with Zelda so much (my dorm banned me from her for awhile since I played her so much and was beating everybody and this is a different group from my tournament group), that training up a secondary character like ZSS helped me learn her character a lot faster since I'm not trying to learn basic game mechanics as well

 

[nintenerd]

I've been using Zelda since Melee. In this new installment, at first I was horrible with Zelda. Just practice using her and precisely time your attacks. Once you get used to her mechanics, you should be able to win with her. She's actaully a very astonishing character that every takes for granted. She's a hassle when you're constantly using Farore's Wind.

 

[Violenceman]

"Don't think it's a good spot, Sir. She still has the advantage over us."
"Everyone always does. That's what makes us special."
- Firefly

Keep up with Zelda. So many of her moves require intimate knowledge of the timing, it can take a while to really get effective with her (when to hit with fair, how far to tilt the stick when using Farore, etc). If you can get that down, you will find yourself able to take most opponents by surprise. The advantage of playing Zelda is that everyone underestimates you and no one has a developed strategy for dealing with you. Everyone has an anti-Shiek strategy or an anti-Falcon strategy on hand that they have down-pat; almost no one has practiced an anti-Zelda strategy and will be trying to develop one on the fly. If you keep switching up how you apply her moves, you can get a significant number of wins under your belt before your opponent manages to learn how to fight you well (or before they rage quit in frustration).

She may be difficult to play and have an uphill matchup against most characters, but that is what makes her such a satisfying character to learn how to play well.