Tier List Speculation

[DMG]

^^^

Zelda is good for the wrong reasons, and bad for the wrong reasons

 

[Kink-Link5]

It does not help any matters that there is an apparent monopoly over the character's design that is idiosyncratic to the point of being polarizing. The only people I've heard say any good things about Zelda's design post demo 1.0 are Zhime and Ryoko.

 

[Deleted member]

same, but that might not reflect the rest of the community. it's possible that a lot of people are fine with the character and we have a vocal minority. i don't want to this to get personal, since i actually like zhime and ryoko both quite a bit.

 

[DMG]

There are good things about her design. The direction she has gone though doesn't seem very fun for either side. Like if I had to watch Zelda vs Squirtle, I think that might be the perfect time to go to the bathroom and attempt to take the biggest crap of my life, JUST to avoid watching.

Someone said it perfectly though about Zelda. Her mains love her, and everyone else kind of hates her.

 

[Hylian]

I played Demo 1.0 at Genesis for the first time and then quit because I lost to Zelda up-smash 0-death. Playing now, I think she's rather easy to beat and I don't really get all the hate o.O. Then again I guess I've never really played a good zelda.

 

[Kink-Link5]

I played Demo 1.0 at Genesis for the first time and then quit because I lost to Zelda up-smash 0-death. Playing now, I think she's rather easy to beat and I don't really get all the hate o.O. Then again I guess I've never really played a good zelda.

Her design's non-appeal isn't based on it being "too good." She just seems like she's intentionally designed to alternate between standing still to toss her opponent to mines and teleporting away while throwing out retreating superkicks. It isn't fun to play against regardless of who the victor is.

 

[Ginge]

As a non-technical player: Zelda's AI is on par with Luigi's for frustrating matchups. I don't hate her, but it forces me to up my game.

... which honestly is probably a good thing.

 

[jtm94]

I led the Zelda social thread on a pretty obtuse self hate/character hate tangent.

It came down to either:
1. Accepting Zelda is either not fun to play/play against because of how she must(should) be played.
2. Accepting Zelda is fine and Teleport covers her bad approaches while Din's Fire "fixes" all of her flawed moves.

I have grown to be neutral. I do believe she is easy to play against, but no one plays the MU correctly and ends up hating her and thinking Din's Fire/Nayru's Love are super broken and the best/most spammable moves in the game. The only thing I don't like is that she isn't AS versatile as other characters and does in fact need to be played a certain "correct" way.

Ask anyone why they don't like her, and they won't say teleport(which is underused), or not as aggressive playstyle. They will just complain that Din's fire is a pain to play against as is Nayru's Love. If you run into them instead of playing the MU correctly it instills a feeling of hopelessness.

 

[Kink-Link5]

Even if you play the match up correctly it is neither fun nor engaging. Din and Nayru aren't even her best moves. That still in all honesty is granted to her lightning kicks.

 

[GP&B]

I don't have too many issues dealing with Din's and Nayru can be baited, but I feel like every single little mistake leads into a thunderkick. It's like Falcon except there's even less interaction.
And then there's just things that have a pretty bad stigma attached to them. Like FSmash. I want to throttle something every time I see the move out. It's just like... why.

This is more of a hate post than something constructive but saying my thoughts out loud might actually lead to more productive conversations at least.

 

[DMG]

JTM: Most people don't play correctly vs Zelda, because it's boring watching them sit back and wait, BECAUSE she can't approach well in the first place. That's literally the start of every Spacie, Falcon, Roy, and x character going in from boredom and misspacing against her/shield, just to suddenly nearly die to Uthrow CG/throw to kick. If everyone were to play Marth like a huge poon and outspace her the entire game patiently, she would effectively be picked apart for free. Even that outcome doesn't sound very fun. People can use teleport (I guess) for approaching, but even that stuff loses to the patient opponent.

 

[Kink-Link5]

I don't have too many issues dealing with Din's and Nayru can be baited, but I feel like every single little mistake leads into a thunderkick. It's like Falcon except there's even less interaction.
And then there's just things that have a pretty bad stigma attached to them. Like FSmash. I want to throttle something every time I see the move out. It's just like... why.

This is more of a hate post than something constructive but saying my thoughts out loud might actually lead to more productive conversations at least.

It probably won't but every new release needs to circle jerk vent about how Zelda still hasn't gotten any major revamping until it dies down about a month later.

 

[jtm94]

I almost feel obligated to say she isn't fun, but she is in moderation. I would say she is the character I am best with, and my friend and myself both have REALLY good matches with his characters vs. my Zelda. That being said he usually combos me hard, I break out of it, set dins, kick him, set more dins, then he combos me again and that repeats until somebody wins.

The Lightning kicks are amazing, but the hitboxes are weird on them. Sometimes I kick above someone and they go BA-DOOOSH and sometimes I hit them right in the center of the flash and no sweetspot... I feel the animation is misleading.

My buddy eats through my Din's Fire SUPER EASILY. He has become used to playing her and it forces me to get creative with it instead of being predictable. Which builds my gameplay in a way I should be working on anyways.

Zelda is a very punish-based character in this. You bait a punish/whiff/dins hit and then go in for fair/bair and hope to KO or set up more Dins. Against significantly better players she becomes hard to use because they won't make as many of the same mistakes people like my friends would and it becomes incredibly taxing to play her.

DMG: Spacies can just laser until she finds an approach pretty much. I played against a moderately good Falco and he just laserd me until I was in KO range then KOd me. That is how EVERY stock went because I couldn't touch him. I agree playing against her may not be the most fun, but others can still approach her/bait out her defenses. I also agree about teleport, you can just grab/punish where she appears or throw out attacks and hope they hit.

 

[DMG]

Dins is fun for Marth. You get free Fsmash resets by hitting it.

 

[PMS | LEVEL 100 MAGIKARP]

Zelda is fine. Once you get past the johns from people who are too impatient to wait for proper approach situations or not vigilant enough to properly space, Zelda has a fine design. I wouldn't call it the best, but in reality it's probably less linear than spacies' gameplay as well as falcon and the like.

 

[Kaeldiar]

Zelda being low tier makes me sad. She's always been my number 2 or 3 character, and even being able to use her effectively, I still have to admit that she's low tier. One of her biggest problems is her inability to combo. Most of her game consists of LKing the opponent off the stage, then edgeguarding. Or alternatively, doing stuff so you can LK your opponent off the stage. I'd really like to see her d-air buffed. She has plenty of moves to send the opponent up, but her only vertical killer is her up-air, which is ridiculously hard to hit with. If she had a move to send the opponent DOWN, she could combo

I'm interested to see how the new Din's mechanic affects gameplay. I haven't seen anyone who has put enough time into Zelda to make it a serious weapon, but I imagine it could be.

 

[DrinkingFood]

1. Give her one active din's fire at a time
2. with a transcendent hitbox, no swatting it because she only has one now
3. It stays until hit or until detonated by another side-b input, much like snake's C4
4. And maybe it's land cancelable
5. improve her ability to move around organically instead just improving how her specials move around
6. ???????
6. Profit...?

also nair/neutral b are hella redundant. not in terms of use, just in terms of inspiration. both spinny sparkly multi-hitty moves
wow, such glamour, very magic, such female, so sorceriss, amazign
maybe combine both into one move that can reflect and has nair properties with bigger hitboxes? then replace one with something else to make her a more interesting character, but i don't LoZ so i've no clue what it'd be

 

[jtm94]

I wish she could move more organically. She's terribly slow to the point where she drops combos by moves that don't send far. utilt is a serious vertical killer, and I do believe dair is pretty useless unless you used Din's, but in that case fair would have KOd much more easily. I still believe she needs a ranged move of some sort to force some kind of approach.

She can combo kind of, you can ftilt into usmash, into nair. ftilt into bair. dthrow into bair. they just aren't super extensive. If you set up Dins infront of you then she can combo into the dins whereas without them the combo would have been dropped.

 

[SixSaw]

So the complaint is basically that the character encourages camping and 1 dimensional play? Personally I think that's due at least in part to many players not realizing her full potential (coming up with more complex din's formations than horizontal and vertical rows, etc). There's a Zelda player in my area who does crazy things with farore's wind. She can appear unpredictably all over the place and suddenly have an existing din's layout take on a whole new purpose, eliminating options before you even had them, as well as using them to extend her own combos. It's brilliant to watch and play against. Fighting her almost feels like a series of puzzles. Certain characters just being able to cheese through all of that is an issue, though. She definitely still needs some tweaking and buffs to certain areas of her game to make that sort of cerebral play more intuitive, but I think the concept is awesome.

It'd also be nice if her fair and bair weren't the exact same move.

 

[jtm94]

See that's the kind of stuff I like to hear, but it's like why do all of that when you can do simple and effective?

Marth's fair/bair are the same, Zelda's bair is faster and weaker.

 

[SpiderMad]

There's a Zelda player in my area who does crazy things with farore's wind.

Who? Is he coming to the 28th EXP tourney?

 

[DMG]

It would be nicer if Zelda didn't exist. Link goes to save Daisy, Luigi tossed aside again. More news at 10 o'clock

 

[SixSaw]

Who? Is he coming to the 28th EXP tourney?

I wish I remembered :/

 

[Vashimus]

Zelda is a Brawl character with good hitstun.

 

[deadjames]

Zelda is a Brawl character with good hitstun.

I feel like the same can be said for Mewtwo and Jiggs.

 

[Vashimus]

I love Mewtwo, and I've quoted him in several ideological essays, but I don't care much for his Smash incarnation, so I can't really say much on him.

Jiggs gets a pass becuz Maylay.

 

[GP&B]

Mewtwo has always felt like the equivalent of a Brawl character before Brawl was a thing, but he's so much more likable than one and that's especially true for his PM incarnation. Jiggs, well, there isn't much else to be said about her.

 

[Kink-Link5]

Jigglypuff also doesn't stand still for 8 minutes.

 

[The_NZA]

I don't know what you all are on about. Mewtwo is boss. i think its silly just because a character isn't sheik weight or heavier, the character feels like a Brawl character. Fact: the only character that still feels like a Brawl Character is DDD because he actually functions in the game in a pretty similar way. I still miss the running chaingrabs. they were so cool.

 

[Zerudahime]

To be honest...

I MIGHT actually read some of this if any of these "complaints" were from high level players that use her/fight her regularly in tournaments. Until you understand how a character functions on a high level how does anyone have any room to judge? It boggles my mind that so many people are opinionated about zelda, of all characters, when the chances are you barely even tried to pick her up. Its funny that everyone feels some sort of entitlement when It comes to Zelda when ppl wouldn't even dream about saying these things about fox.

Just saying, revamps on a character before final release? Why? So she can have her whole meta destroyed?
Zelda obviously has only been getting more attention because a of a few select groups of people that decide
To say something and then it gets echoed across smashboards and nobody formulates their own thoughts or opinions. Zelda is a separate character archetype. She isn't aggressive/defensive. She's passive aggressive. If you are playing her and think she's boring, maybe she's not for you. There are more characters on the list. If you think she's not "fun to fight" niether is a campy fox, jiggs, chaingrabbing sheik, or a nana heavy diddy, do I really need to continue?

Don't really have anything else to say, other than this is getting very VERY old.

 

[Kink-Link5]

To be honest...

I MIGHT actually read some of this if any of you had any idea of how she actually operates on a high level.
Just saying, revamps on a character before final release? Why? So she can have her whole meta destroyed?
Zelda obviously has only been getting more attention because a of a few select groups of people that decide
To say something and then it gets echoed across smashboards and nobody formulates their own thoughts or opinions. Zelda is a separate character archetype. She isn't aggressive/defensive. She's passive aggressive. If you are playing her and think she's boring, maybe she's not for you. There are more characters on the list. If you think she's not "fun to fight" niether is a campy fox, jiggs, chaingrabbing sheik, or a nana heavy diddy, do I really need to continue?

Don't really have anything else to say, other than this is getting very VERY old.

So, everything is subject to change.

Except for the part where the response to a character's design has been negative by the community, and thus has received a large amount of requests for changes since 2.0. Now that 3.0 is out it's "Too late" to be making these changes? The whole thing sounds suspect. I'm not saying that Ryoko intentionally held off on changing the character just so she would be immune to changes, but if your response echos that of the PMBR, then the entire development of the character and modus operandi there of seems to be a gigantic dissonance from the development of the rest of the game.

It wasn't too late for Snake to get a new Side B on the dawn of 3.0, and it has been openly stated that that change, something far more drastic than anything that's been done with Zelda in the last two years, is open to being changed again or otherwise revamped if it is received poorly by the community or has a negative impact on the game.

I respect you Zhime, you're really good at getting angry at powershields,but your attitude on this sounds much more defensive than it does rationalizing. I'd want to hear more than complaints on both sides over the other side complaining about complaining.

 

[PMS | LEVEL 100 MAGIKARP]

There's a vocal minority of people who hate zelda and a vocal minority of people who love her. The people who hate her attempt to erase the other side by saying "they only feel that way because they're zelda mains" and then try to project their views over the entire community and say things like "the reaction to zelda has been negative from the community."
In reality the vast majority of people are ambivalent, and most people think the zelda matchup is just another matchup, more annoying than some but less annoying than others.

 

[Zerudahime]

Zelda already had a major side B revamp. from 1.0 to 2.0 even to 2.5 there were major changes that effected side b and its properties.
The snake argument holds true for Zelda as well. She's only further ahead.

As far as my comments being ''aligned with the backroom'' i dont know what you are trying to get at.
PMBR makes decisions based on individual inputs collectively so naturally there will be disagreements among it's members in the case of every character.
Let's not forget that even PMBR members are individuals entitled to their own opinions/beliefs.

Zelda is not immune to changes. She just took a large nerf in 3.0... So again, im not sure what you expect from Zelda other than wanting her to be easier to fight which will make her worse in the end...I dont really like to put my personal opinions on the table so I'm just going to stop here.

Also lawl @powershield video. Good thing shields were fixed.

 

[jtm94]

Guess I gotta build my strength up to be entitled to complain c:

Good thing this is a casual speculative/observative thread and nothing more.

Shifting focus, how much better does Lucario starting with an aura level make him? And was it necessary to cut his wall cling?

 

[DrinkingFood]

MewTwo isn't anymore a brawl character than Samus is. The hitstun being normal and having spectacular movement options make all the difference.
Also i don't think anyone is asking for Zelda to be easier to fight, just less aggravating and more interesting.

 

[Deleted member]

I'm not going to comment on how fun Zelda is to play with/against. I will say that a couple (literally) of people on the Zelda boards and I have been questioning just how viable she'll be in the long run. Her lack of good mobility is an issue, and high-level players will eventually learn to be patient enough play around her. She relies a lot on the opponent making mistakes/getting impatient, and regardless of how much/little fun that is for either player, I don't feel like it makes for the most solid character. Basically, Zelda has nowhere to go but down in my opinion if she stays the way she is. It pains me to admit this as a dedicated Zelda player, but I really do think she needs to see some notable changes.

Zelda designers, please take into consideration that it isn't just the Zelda haters who think she might need some work.

 

[Kink-Link5]

Zelda is not immune to changes. She just took a large nerf in 3.0... So again, im not sure what you expect from Zelda other than wanting her to be easier to fight which will make her worse in the end...I dont really like to put my personal opinions on the table so I'm just going to stop here.

As long as we're going to discuss this, I'd appreciate if you didn't put words in my mouth. I neither said nor implied that Zelda should be easier to fight against. I'm more for Zelda buffs than I am nerfs.

 

[Zerudahime]

As long as we're going to discuss this, I'd appreciate if you didn't put words in my mouth. I neither said nor implied that Zelda should be easier to fight against. I'm more for Zelda buffs than I am nerfs.

That wasnt my intention at all. I apologize for not addressing each comment directly.
Although, I'm not really ''discussing'' anything. Kinda busy atm, and the thread came to my attn somehow.

 

[I Dair You]

Pretty sure Zhime is just fed up with the same old complaining led by Umbreon and DMG. They seriously wont stop til they have a bunch of uninformed posters siding with them from all the subliminal Zelda hate theyve been sprinkling over SWF. Zelda has been nerfed in 3.0 (Fair and Bair Sweetspot KB reduced, more lag with land cancel Nayus), and the fact that she is still picked apart is kind of unsettling. Here we have a character thats never been good in a Smash game to date, but once Zhime comes along and actually does work with Zelda, the salt shaker pours over.

 

[The_NZA]

She's tricky. It's definitely not fun to feel like "okay if i stand still, there are going to be din's fires on the screen, so i got to jump in and make something happen. Owe, I got nayru loved. Alright, I wont extend as far in. Ow, I got thunder kicked".

Other characters to look for, as a template for how Zelda maybe should function, are Link and Peach. In my mind, Link puts a timer on his opponents with his projectiles, and has good tools for keep out. But he also has good tools to begin to put on pressure. Peach also has a solid "keep out" game, and can force attacks and pressure with float spacing, turnips, and FC combos.

I don't think anyone wants to destroy all of Zelda's meta. I think people are asking for a "completion" patch to direct Zelda in a direction better. Think of all the changes Link saw in 2.6. Something akin to that would be good.