Since Link has been polished rather nicely, with some new hitboxes and other adjustments, it makes me wonder what the benefits are of Toon Link as of 2.6. I could be wrong about this, since I don't main as him, but this is what I've noticed so far:
*His vertical recovery is worse than Links, this was an acceptable trade-off before Link's new hitboxes helped with edge guarding and extended further horizontally.
*He has an overall shorter range and less killing power, which may not be the case for his Ariel attacks, but his grounded tilts and smashes all have this problem (besides his USmash).
*His bomb deals less damage and knockback
*His grounded UpB isn't the most reliable killing move, which was fixed for link as a horizontal gimp at 100+%
*He has poor recovery, and is easily edge guarded by his lack of a vertical spike, since his whole animation resembles that of the N64 era link.
Again, I could be wrong or missing a few details, but this is what I've found through my playthrough of the character. So is Toon Link an inferior character, or is it too soon to know tier and meta-game wise?
Link has received more changes than TL has in 2.6, but that doesn't make him a strictly worse character. There are many benefits to choosing TL over Link (as well as vice versa, obviously).
Toon Link's recovery, with some experience, is strong. With good DI, AGT'ing gives you both a considerable amount of distance and many options to vary your recovery with, as well as simultaneously throwing out non-clankable projectiles for your opponent to deal with. You can also mix-up by throwing a rang, grappling the ledge, or by using a sweetspot up+b. Link's recovery does pretty much the same thing, except it's more lenient and up+b travels further. This is all pre-bomb jumping, his recovery is solid with AGT and tether/up+b mixups alone, add that in and it's just icing.
With regards to killing power: Toon Link's fsmash is also a very potent killing move, and while his dsmash does not posses raw power, it sends at a very good angle for killing people early and hence has many uses against opponents who are close to the edge. In many cases it is a better option than a counterpart with more raw power, sheerly because the angle at which they are forced to recover is that much worse. Also, note that TL's aerial up+b gives him an aerial killing option that nothing in Link's arsenal can compare to, allowing him to effectively trap opponents above him and secure a KO with ease. TL's dair is also easier to connect with, as he jumps much quicker than Link does.
TL's bomb is a lot better than Link's (it's better that it has less kb), it guarantees a hit confirm into pretty much any move you want. This even works at killing percents where you can combo bomb into dair or up+b. It also deals 12% damage, which is neat. Comparing their tilts/grounded up+bs by their killing potential alone is not a fair way of doing things, seeing as they were designed for different purposes. TL's grounded up+b is far more utility based, and highly dynamic in nature. With it's mobility, multi-hit nature and charge-up animation it's useful as a mobile edge-hogging tool, and as a tool to tech chase with, both things that you can not achieve with Link's up+b. Having a grounded move that can cover multiple tech options is extremely important for TL, because his grab's start-up is too slow to regrab a tech animation on reaction. Likewise, his tilts are also focused more on utility and not raw power, they are considerably quicker overall and dtilt/utilt can also combo into TL's killing moves. TL's dtilt in particular is fantastic and probably rivals Link's utilt, which is by far his best tilt.
As for 2.6 specific benefits: His fthrow, uthrow and bair have been reworked to improve his combo game. Bair in particular sends at a much better angle now and improves his combo game a lot. The removal of the boomerang catch animation, while universal, really shines for TL as it allows him to use his fast jump animation to combo from his boomerang with a much larger array of moves than he used to be able to.
tl;dr: TL is the faster, more combo/mobility oriented version of Link, traits that are very important in PM. While he lacks in a lot of areas that Link excels at (particularly range), he really shines in others, e.g. his running speed, his jump physics, his superior grab game, his better combo game, his control of people above him. You have to look at both sides of the coin to understand that he isn't necessarily a worse version of Link.
Bomb jumps are MUCH harder in 2.6.
I could do them endlessly in 2.5, now the bomb hits the sword and goes flying away, same with Link.
Idk what the hell they did....
TL's up+b has three parts: A strong, medium and weak hit. In 2.5 the "medium" hit was really weak and the "weak" hit basically may as well have not existed (it came so late in the animation, pretty much as he was already falling). In 2.6 the medium hit was given much more power, making it a respectable killing move, and the weak hit was given more active frames to be made more prevalent. The end result is that up+b will be much more lenient when aiming for a strong combo finisher (the strong+medium hit stay out for roughly 2/3 of the animation, as opposed to the strong hit only being half the animation in 2.5) but there is an actual weak hit now. The weak hit only does 4 damage, and TL's bombs have 6 health, so it does make the timing for bomb jumping a little more strict. That said, testing was done to make sure that the timing for bomb jumping is still possible for a human to perform consistently.
Link's, however, should not be any harder in 2.6. It was always possible for his up+b to hit the bomb away if timed incorrectly.
It took me a while to get used to it, too.
