What can be done to Roy's Reverse Tipper to make it viable this time?

[Ultinarok]

As has already been seen from Roy's gameplay trailer, the reverse tipper mechanic has returned. Historically, the mechanic has been a messy one because it forces Roy to fight like Captain Falcon: hyper aggressive and in the opponent's face, but then he gets saddled with Marth frame data.

Marth has always worked well and been viable despite tweaks and changes because his playstyle matches up with his strengths. Roy's have conflicting interests. Smash 4 tried to fix this by boosting his mobility, damage racking and knockback, making him more combo oriented than Marth and making his sweetspots far more generous and rewarding.

Yet ultimately, his frame data, poor spacing abilitu relative to his sword peers and poor disadvantage state and recovery still left him as arguably the worst FE character.

So what do you think Roy needs to become closer to Marth in potential? What are you hoping will be done to him to make the reverse tipper mechanic more successful? Do you think there's hope from the small amount of footage we've seen?

 

[MrGameguycolor]

Really, the problem has never been in the reverse tipper.
Roy simply has not been built to be as strong as Marth overall whether it's been an oversight or intended.

In Melee, he was plagued poor hitboxes, blind spots and weak knockback destroyed by crouch-canceling on top of already being combo food, having slightly worse mobility and recovery then Marth.

While Sm4sh Roy had these technical issues fixed, he gained new shortcomings.
Shorter sword range, no short-hop auto-cancels, Side-B quits linking at high %, weaker kill throw, Aerial Up-B being worse in every way to it's ground version, still struggling to escape from combos and a owning an even more risky and difficult to land Dair spike.

The new improvements in Sm4sh were very welcomed and pushed the character from low to mid tier.
But Roy hasn't ever received the quality of life aspects that Marth has been blessed with in his moveset.
The Young Lion has a collection of honest and reasonably good attacks, but the Hero King's kit has just been borderline overpowered with a stupid good Jab, F-Tilt, Up-Tilt, F-Smash, F-air, B-air, Neutral-B and Up-B.

PM has proven that the reverse tipper can work well.
IMO, Roy in the base game of Ultimate with mechanics that reward aggressive play in a game that seems to focuses on speed and balancing more.
Roy could get his time in the spotlight and share it with Chrom.

 

[ILOVESMASH]

Roy's reverse tipper was kinda flawed in smash 4 in the sense that he had lower damage values than Marth in most of his sweetspotted and sourspotted attacks attacks besides F-smash. This wasn't the case at first, but changed after the 1.1.6 update iirc. Other than that, I think Smash 4 mostly got the Roy's reverse tipper right. Give Roy moves with slightly less hitbox duration than Marth in exchange for lower endlag on most moves and actual grab combos / mixups.

The biggest thing hindering roy was his options out of Dash being ineffective. SH Aerials were ineffective due to the inability to autocancel then out of a Shorthop, Double Edge dance was risking due to characters falling out of it easier, and Roy's Jab, F-Tilt, and D-Tilt, though fantastic moves, couldn't easily be done out of a dash. With Dash Canceling in Smash Ultimate, I think Roy will become much better due to being able to use these tools more effectively in the neutral.

 

[Mario & Sonic Guy]

Having a sweetspot at the sword's center wouldn't be much of a problem if it had the same strengths as Marth's tipped hits. Of course, Roy has more problems than that, especially with the animation changes that he received.

Also, for a fighter who has good air speed, Roy's recovery is quite mediocre, and it also doesn't help that he's a fast-faller.

 

[Gimj]

The problem has never been in the reverse tipper.
Roy simply has not been built to be as strong as Marth overall whether it's been an oversight or intended.

In Melee, he was plagued poor hitboxes, blind spots and weak sour-hitboxes on top of already being combo food, having slightly worse mobility and recovery then Marth.

While Sm4sh Roy had these technical issues fixed, he gained new shortcomings.
Shorter sword range, no short-hop auto-cancels, Side-B quits linking at high %, weaker kill throw, Aerial Up-B being worse in every way to ground version, still being easy to combo, very risky and difficult to land Dair.

The new improvements in Sm4sh were very welcomed and pushed the character from low to mid tier.
But Roy hasn't ever received the quality of life aspects that Marth has been blessed with in his moveset.
PM has proven that the reverse tipper can work well.

So Roy is in the base game of Ultimate with mechanics that reward aggressive play in a game that seems to focuses on speed and balancing more.
Roy could get his time in the spotlight.

QFT. I'm tired of people saying Roy's "reverse" hitbox is what makes him not as good as Marth. Such an overstated "weakness" parroted to no end.

It reminds me of the people who complain about Mewtwo's weight; to whom I sarcastically pointed out the day he was buffed that since Mewtwo is very light, that means he is literally unplayable and cannot be top tier(look at him now). Roy's general kit just has less than Marth, that is all. Marth can do more things than Roy generally speaking, even though I feel Roy is an underrated character in Smash4. Roy can be easily fixed/buffed to be stronger while maintaining his UNIQUE property on his sword. I love the fact that Roy is a sword wielder that is efficiently played like an up-close rushdown. Roy doesn't need to mimick Marth's strengths to be good, he's his own character that can have his own unique strengths.

Think of Roy's sword as extended limb range. He's like a Mario or CF with a bit "extra" range, and I find that cool from a playstyle and design standpoint. Imagine Mario had a slightly extended hitbox on all his attacks that was weaker. Mario would be a different character, and probably OP.

 

[Ultinarok]

Yeah the implication I was making with this thread relates more to how he can become more viable while maintaining his unique reverse tipper. It's pretty clear that Roy will always be built around landing the base of his sword as his niche.

The problem is that from a viability standpoint, that style hasn't worked out for him because his other traits don't mesh well with it. When making this thread, I'm not entailing that his reverse tipper is problematic. I'm asking what could be done to Roy to fully exploit the mechanic's potential. Frame data is the most obvious change, but if you go too far with that, he becomes Mario with extended discounts, which is a recipe for trouble, as the poster above stated. So what else can be done? What about his recovery, his grab game, his follow-ups, his aerial momentum, the nature of his sourspots? What would you like to see Roy receive that you feel would make his unique mechanic function better?

 

[meleebrawler]

Since Marth gets benefits from his sourspots in the form of combos due to lower knockback, how about this for Roy? Have his sweetspots do high damage but low knockback (think Buster Shulk) and vice versa for his tippers. That way he can effectively combo aggressively up close while also being able to space somewhat safely if he needs to. If the rest of his attributes don't change, this'd make him a real high-risk, high reward version of Marth, able to cause much higher amounts of damage in a short amount of time, if you're willing to take close-range risks.