Is it worth noting that Ryoko isn't on the PMDT anymore? He's defending her past design and really isn't in control of where she goes now (though he may have more influence than I'd think). You might be better off giving this spiel to @Magus420 or @Strong Bad. I'd be fine with down-special changing into something more usable but I have no idea what that move would be, and I'm sure the PMDT has been in this same situation for a long time. I also am not a Shielda main so my opinion should probably carry less weight in regards to transform.
Ryoku is the one who chimed in to defend transform. It's my understanding that he generally took liberties with Zelda's design and delineated from others in the PMDT, and maybe that's why he feels the need to defend it as adamantly as he is. That's really all conjecture though, and if he wants to defend his design, that's fine by me. But if he's just doing it because he had the largest hand in developing it, that's not good.
Y'all need that on a t-shirt so you're easier to spot in a crowd, that is tooo funny.
I mean, really, it's true. Her combos are pretty basic when she gets something going. I feel like the degree of thought involved is as minimal as the commitment. Like, you hit a fast faller with an up smash, what now? How about up smash again!
Anyhow, glad to see this discussion is so welcoming of Zelda mains. Thanks for the tag @
Downdraft
. I don't really know where the conversation is with Zelda right now, whether it's on her defensive play style, the ongoing debate of changing her down special, or whether she's hella broken or super under-powered, so I'm just going to give my thoughts on the character as of 3.5.
I really like this iteration of Zelda and I have mained her since 2.6b. Every time there has been a patch that's changed her I have tried to be an advocate for not over reacting. I agree that some Zelda mains take her patches very personally but I think that their opinions should not be immediately dismissed. Some of the changes that were made in 3.0 were directly made based on Zhime's success at Pound V.5, I'd probably take it personally too.
As far as the tier list is concerned, I think that Zelda is in the upper half of the list but far from top 5 material. She is a largely unexplored character so it's hard to share information and develop her tech. There isn't any footage of edge canceled teleporting or orbiting Din's Fire unless we post it, and few people are posting. On paper she is a defensive juggernaut but in practice she struggles against faster characters with much more developed meta-games. There was a time when people didn't know how to wave shine>up smash (Fox) or how to forward throw chain grab> forward smash (Marth) or down throw/down air> knee (Falcon), all character she can struggle against. It's important not to jump to conclusions with tier lists when the meta of Project M 3.5 is so young, especially in regards to an under-represented character like Zelda.
I don't think anyone is calling her overpowered, and if they are, lol. I basically agree with this. Upper half, not top five. I think she has a lot of good match ups in the upper half, but some seriously bad ones at the top tier level. Orbiting Din's seems buggy to me. It just seems that Din's has a hard time mapping itself back to the character. I'm hoping in the next patch it takes a much more linear route. An ambiguous fireball floating around is just...silly.
And just one quick point forward throw chain grab into fsmash with Marth doesn't work if you just DI down and away..
Edit: Idk why it's separating that last thought into a second quote, but nothing seems to fix it.
