His tiny size and floatiness makes him hard to combo, and can crouch under neath sheik's needles and ZSS's tether grab. He also has a good match up against fox and falcon due to being fast fallers. He has some good matchups against top tiers, it's pretty strange how a mid tier pulls it off. I might just pick him up to see what the deal is with him.
I imagine there's more to these "good matchups" than being able to crouch and the opponents being fast-fallers?
I don't know Kirby, I won't comment on his viability either way, I'd just like you go into detail about these matchups and what makes them good.
As a Zelda main, I can safely say that her specials are easily her best moves.
I'm intrigued. Permit me play devil's advocate for a bit, okay?
She can camp with Din's Fire and Phantom Slash. The former has great range, speed, and power, and can be steered into your opponent.
She's incredibly vulnerable while using it. It doesn't project a hitbox until the fireball is produced, so everything between that is just a dead zone that Zelda can be punished in. Then there's the fact that it sends her into freefall off-stage, weakening its potential as a zoning option.
The latter, when fully charged, can kill opponents trying to recover.
True, but it's practically non-viable on stage. You just have to shield it and its use is mitigated. What really kills it for me is the fact that Zelda has to release it, she can't store it in the way that DK and Samus can store their neutral-b. It's very easy to read because of that; even off-stage, you can airdodge or time your recovery to evade both hitboxes. On top of that, reflectors make a joke of it.
Naryu's Love is useful for reading; it can catch rolls, negate grabs, and get her out of combos by decreasing her fall speed.
Vulnerable on shield, gets beaten by disjoints, practically requires a hard read to be useful. The fall speed / power-landing thing is pretty good though.
I don't really use Farore's Wind except to recover, but it automatically homes into opponents, making it difficult to avoid. If you land both hits vertically, it can kill a heavyweight at around 60%, no joke.
Except if your opponent knows where the R button is.
Being straight about it, it's easy to shield and very punishable if your opponent reads its trajectory. Farore's Elevator is very fun and has good kill potential, but again you need a hard read, otherwise it's free juggle potential for your opponent.
Many of Zelda's attacks are also quite strong, like the dash attack and up aerial.
Dash attack is decent, u-air is slow and easy to dodge but I guess the disjoint salvages it.
Her smash attacks are super safe on shield.
Except for d-smash, I don't think this is true.
Lightning Kick is a game finisher, is great in trades, and isn't that difficult to land. You can pull it out at a random time, the opponent won't know what hit them.
I don't think you can. It's a slightly easier-to-land version of Falcon's f-air, but it's still situational at best. The fact that she doesn't have a reliable b-air (it being a reverse f-air) means she's basically missing a potential CQC option, which Falcon does have in b-air.
The jab is good really good against approach.
Can't dispute this, jab is great.
Finally, neutral aerial can stop opponent's attempts to juggle, and rack up a bit of damage.
That's fair.
One combo I like to do is, if my opponent is on the ground, down aerial to up smash. That's a reliable kill method.
One combo doesn't a character make. Does she have other combo options?
Her flaws? Her weight is the only one I can think of.
I don't want to open the can of worms that is a discussion of Zelda's weaknesses, but I do think there's more to it than that.
Bear in mind I don't have a strong opinion of Zelda either way, nor I do think she's unsalvageable trash. Just trying to get a discussion going. :3
