Where do you think Roy stands in the tier list?

[Jenna Zant]

Apologies if this is in the wrong place, but where do you guys think he would be in the tier list? Personally, I think that he should be just below Captain Falcon, as they both have similar strengths and weaknesses to be in a similar position. What about you guys?

 

[Jink8]

I think Roy has what it takes to be top tier but that's just me

 

[ArcanaXIII]

I have to say either at the top of mid, or the bottom of high.

 

[Serew]

I'd say he's somewhere on the top of mid ATM, he's still very underdeveloped

 

[Valflame]

I think he's on the bottom of high

 

[Guineapig126]

High-mid. There are other characters out there that he outclasses by a lot, but he needs to take a back seat to the characters that get results, to simplify it. If Roy does get results though, and his metagame remains fresh and new (and develops as of now) I can see him being in high tier.

 

[TurboLink]

Bottom of mid tier.

 

[Kealmir]

I think he's pretty damn close to Ryu in terms of tier listing currently, the only thing keeping them from the top is their poor and incredibly predictable recovery.

 

[dy831532sssfjhhggb2224523]

Potent top or anywhere in high that isn't below high-mid. Easily better than Ike. Has no unwinnables and has tons of great neutral and punish tools specific to his worst matchups, even.

His recovery should almost never be an issue to anyone who can skillfully mix up recoveries, he more than makes up for it with how long he lives and how he utilizes rage like a mini-Lucario, he can safely throw out his combo and kill options constantly even against the characters with the best frame data in the game, his incredibly powerful disjoint can beat or clank just about any attack, he has reliable 20-30+% combos for any given stray poke like nair/jab/uair, he has good and fast options to escape combos and even turn them into combos of his own, he's incredibly fast and great at zoning which are terrifying together, he has no problems manuevering around projectiles to tear up someone, he can bait/trap/juggle like none other, his defensive options and movement options are incredible, his fall+ground+air speed being among the best each give him incredible approach and retreat options, a hard read with counter can mean the game in so many cases and it also doubles as a versatile edgeguard tool when other things don't, he's not bad at landing by any means, he has lingering or continuing hitboxes via DED/nair, he can safely do a lot to shields/defensive options with incredible poking and open up more with conditioning... I love this character.

Want him to be as good as I say?

Nerves of steel. Stay focused. Don't fish or overcommit TOO often, but they can still be good sometimes. Maximize his movement tools. Pressure people so they have nowhere safe to go, keep control. When you hit someone, make sure they either eat a lot of percent from that one hit or die. Survive and use his rage to its fullest, learn to keep leads well. Actively put fear into your opponent, and keep poking away at them until they're gone.

Otherwise he's just gonna be a mid-whatever forever if you suck with him.

 

[Friendly_Fire]

Borderline bottom high tier, most definitely. He can trash almost the entirety of the lower portion of the cast but struggles with the top tiers. A-.

 

[MarioMeteor]

He's definitely not top tier, more like in the middle of high tier.

 

[anas abou]

is either low-high or high-mid. whether he's better than or not is not known.

 

[LunarWingCloud]

High or at very least high mid. He's great, only weakness is bad recovery, which isn't one of the worst at least.

 

[TurboLink]

I thought we were past all of this. Why are people saying Roy is high-tier? Where are you people coming from? Reddit?

 

[Jenna Zant]

I thought we were past all of this. Why are people saying Roy is high-tier? Where are you people coming from? Reddit?

What? Did we all agree Roy was trash or something?

 

[dy831532sssfjhhggb2224523]

I thought we were past all of this. Why are people saying Roy is high-tier? Where are you people coming from? Reddit?

Because he's good. If we were Reddit, we'd forget him and dickride Ryu.

 

[Pherae77]

Reddit thinks he's trash, from my experience there. Most of them think even Marth is better.

 

[Jenna Zant]

Reddit thinks he's trash, from my experience there. Most of them think even Marth is better.

I've seen people say that Roy should be in d-tier, because of his lack of results alone.

 

[Mario & Sonic Guy]

I've only got Roy today, but based on what I've seen with him, his attacks do pack a punch if they're sweetspotted, but the sweetspot requires Roy to be close to his opponent; this does mean that he'll have to risk getting grabbed.

Still, Roy is on the speedy side while running, and his air speed is shockingly high as well, which does help his recovery out to some extent. Of course, he still has problems against long range attackers, especially with his lack of projectile attacks.

I might not keep track of the competitive scene much, but Roy feels kind of like a middle of the road type of fighter, though I can't really say by how much.

 

[Pherae77]

I've only got Roy today, but based on what I've seen with him, his attacks do pack a punch if they're sweetspotted, but the sweetspot requires Roy to be close to his opponent; this does mean that he'll have to risk getting grabbed.

Still, Roy is on the speedy side while running, and his air speed is shockingly high as well, which does help his recovery out to some extent. Of course, he still has problems against long range attackers, especially with his lack of projectile attacks.

I might not keep track of the competitive scene much, but Roy feels kind of like a middle of the road type of fighter, though I can't really say by how much.

You have to space correctly in the neutral to avoid getting grabbed. With nair you can either space with the sourspot, which would be safe on shield, or you can kind of go through them with the sweetspot to land behind them (i'm not sure if it's 100% safe, but the opponent would have to turn around to grab, which might give Roy enough time to get out of their grab range, and they probably wouldn't expect you to land behind them). With fair, you can jump out of it before you land, so you won't get grabbed at any spacing. You should never land right in front of them, even if that is where the speetspot is, unless they are at a disadvantage state. And the only other moves you should rely on in the neutral are dtilt and jab, both of which are safe from grab, even with sweetspot.

 

[Curleh_Mustache]

He has too many solid tools to make him low tier. His only weaknesses are his recovery and lack of projectile. He should be at the top of mid tier to the middle of high tier

 

[godogod]

I honestly don't see a lot of tourney players who main Roy, actually winning with Roy(or Marth and Lucina). He feels good and looks good on paper(but this could be our bias), but his presence in the tourney scene is lack luster. Every other person who doesn't main roy thinks he's low mid tier now.

 

[RedAhmed]

I'd say he's close to entering high tier, I think his recovery is one of his bigger flaws. Also, I haven't really seen people do extraordinary stuff with Roy.

 

[Zoramine Fae]

You should really put a poll up for this type of thing. Look at the Mac boards with my post of where Mac is in the tier list. Something like that.

Roy stands at a solid lower middle tier who has a few crippling flaws that seriously hold him back and should be addressed as they are just poor, lazy design. Many of his moves take inspiration from Marth's moveset, and while this is interesting and all to see how they work in Roy's arsenal, things like Down Tilt not popping upwards, Flare Blade should be having a wide arcing hitbox like Marth's old Shield Breaker and Roy's old Flare Blade in order to make it useful, and still having some sub-par attacks against shield don't help him out.

His major issue is the fact he cannot autocancel any of his aerials out of a short hop, meaning that he will ALWAYS suffer lag when using an aerial. If this problem is addressed, he will very quickly move up to upper middle tier; it's the fact he can't approach with an aerial and has only semi-reliable grounded approaches, even including his grab, that make him so limited. He can't even approach that well, which is what he was almost designed with the idea of doing!

 

[Schnizzle Fits]

You can space Roy's fair safely, its not much of an approach but its something.

 

[Jamble]

I always see people saying Roy's recovery is bad, but that honestly baffles me. It's very quick and you get a lot of aim with it. Sure, you're not going to recover from really far horizontally off the stage. At the same time, I find that it's got usable range and within its range, it's pretty safe. I find that potentially it has a decent enough amount of mixups thanks to its aimable nature, and I've got a fair number of odd stage spike kills on a careless edgeguarder. Making edgeguarding a little more of a "careful" endeavor is a big deal. I've always really liked it compared to most recoveries, even though it doesn't have quite as far of a reach as a lot of them.

Multi-edit for really confusing writing; not enough coffee yet.

 

[~ Valkyrie ~]

I always see people saying Roy's recovery is bad, but that honestly baffles me. It's very quick and you get a lot of aim with it. Sure, you're not going to recover from really far horizontally off the stage. At the same time, I find that it's got usable range and within its range, it's pretty safe. I find that potentially it has a decent enough amount of mixups thanks to its aimable nature, and I've got a fair number of odd stage spike kills on a careless edgeguarder. Making edgeguarding a little more of a "careful" endeavor is a big deal. I've always really liked it compared to most recoveries, even though it doesn't have quite as far of a reach as a lot of them.

Multi-edit for really confusing writing; not enough coffee yet.

Along with this is that it's difficult to try gimp due the early super-armor frames. I could only count the million times it made me recover safely despite the gimper trying to flub it.

 

[Zoramine Fae]

Along with this is that it's difficult to try gimp due the early super-armor frames. I could only count the million times it made me recover safely despite the gimper trying to flub it.

Blazer doesn't have armor frames in the air. It only has armor on frames 4 to 10 anyways. Not sure where you are getting this from, but Blazer due to its multi-hit nature and being strong at the end is probably the only reason why you are avoiding getting gimped.

I always see people saying Roy's recovery is bad, but that honestly baffles me. It's very quick and you get a lot of aim with it. Sure, you're not going to recover from really far horizontally off the stage. At the same time, I find that it's got usable range and within its range, it's pretty safe. I find that potentially it has a decent enough amount of mixups thanks to its aimable nature, and I've got a fair number of odd stage spike kills on a careless edgeguarder. Making edgeguarding a little more of a "careful" endeavor is a big deal. I've always really liked it compared to most recoveries, even though it doesn't have quite as far of a reach as a lot of them.

Multi-edit for really confusing writing; not enough coffee yet.

I think most people's problems with it are that it can go really skewed if they don't know how to recover with it, like holding forwards with the recovery when below the stage expecting it to be like Marth's where you hold forwards after using it to move forwards, but then they undershoot the ledge. Its an understandable mistake, and also while his recovery isn't bad, compared to many other characters with much better and multiple options for recovery his is lacking.

 

[godogod]

I thought he only gets super armor if he does it off the ground?..

 

[Zoramine Fae]

I thought he only gets super armor if he does it off the ground?..

That's... Kind of what I just said.

 

[godogod]

You posted right before me. Check the time stamp.

 

[Lady Kuki]

I honestly don't know. No one has used him and done decently enough with him on a consistent basis. I'll have to put him in C for now. Where? I don't know, but I don't believe anyone has shown his true potential yet. :B

If it becomes harder and harder for Roy to make it in top level play, then I will rate him lower. If he actually keeps making it big in top level play, however, I will definitely rate him up. Right now, I have no idea what to think of him. C tier is the most common suggestion, so I'll just put him there. I do agree with his weaknesses and everything at least.

 

[Ethan Haynes]

I think the problem with people placing Roy on a tier list is that they treat him like a 3rd Marth, when he plays nothing like him in this game. If you try to play Marth's gameplan as Roy he sucks. Whereas if you play rushdown Roy is very good, one of the better rushdown characters in the game imo.

I'd put him low in the high tiers or high in the mid tiers, definitely better than Marth and Lucina I feel.

 

[Zoramine Fae]

I think the problem with people placing Roy on a tier list is that they treat him like a 3rd Marth, when he plays nothing like him in this game. If you try to play Marth's gameplan as Roy he sucks. Whereas if you play rushdown Roy is very good, one of the better rushdown characters in the game imo.

I'd put him low in the high tiers or high in the mid tiers, definitely better than Marth and Lucina I feel.

Rushdown's only a problem since while his Neutral Air's first hit and Down Tilt (and somewhat Forward Air, I am resolute that it isn't) are safe on shield, his entire moveset otherwise ISN'T, and he has trouble getting past shields and while not having a bad recovery, its poor compared to many other characters, especially higher tiers. Sheik has Vanish and Bouncing Fish, Zero Suit has Flip Kick and Boost Kick (if thats their names), Bayonetta has just Bayonetta things, Rosalina is basically 'OH HEY LUMA'S HERE HAI GUYZ', and Cloud has Limit Break for an almost instantaneous recovery that also kills early.

He works much better as a Bait-and-Punish character, honestly. You can go aggressive a little bit but once they catch on resume being patient. May not be the most exciting way to play him, but it's by far more effective than how Rushdown has gotten me.

 

[Ethan Haynes]

Rushdown's only a problem since while his Neutral Air's first hit and Down Tilt (and somewhat Forward Air, I am resolute that it isn't) are safe on shield, his entire moveset otherwise ISN'T, and he has trouble getting past shields and while not having a bad recovery, its poor compared to many other characters, especially higher tiers. Sheik has Vanish and Bouncing Fish, Zero Suit has Flip Kick and Boost Kick (if thats their names), Bayonetta has just Bayonetta things, Rosalina is basically 'OH HEY LUMA'S HERE HAI GUYZ', and Cloud has Limit Break for an almost instantaneous recovery that also kills early.

He works much better as a Bait-and-Punish character, honestly. You can go aggressive a little bit but once they catch on resume being patient. May not be the most exciting way to play him, but it's by far more effective than how Rushdown has gotten me.

I try to rush them down using my safe moves like Nair and fair (fair is safe when spaced properly I believe) until they hold sheild for a bit too long allowing me to get a grab, Roy works for me as a rushdown character as long as I don't over commit and I play smart.
But hey I can totally see Roy as a bait and punish character aswell, that's not how I'd play though. Yeah his recovery Is definitely butt, one of the reasons i lean towards high mid than low high

 

[Zoramine Fae]

I try to rush them down using my safe moves like Nair and fair (fair is safe when spaced properly I believe) until they hold sheild for a bit too long allowing me to get a grab, Roy works for me as a rushdown character as long as I don't over commit and I play smart.
But hey I can totally see Roy as a bait and punish character aswell, that's not how I'd play though. Yeah his recovery Is definitely butt, one of the reasons i lean towards high mid than low high

High Mid gets me confused as hell. Makes me think you are saying he's in the middle of high tier, lol.

I could definitely see Roy being aggressive, but he'd be more of a hit a little bit, run away, wait for a mistake, then punish by being aggressively. By rotating between these two opponents would probably get screwed up.

Also, happy to see someone else agrees his recovery is complete garb XD

 

[Jamble]

I still think it's unfair to say his recovery is garbage. It fails a bit when it comes to distance, but that's just one aspect of his recovery, and I find I still can recover from a pretty good distance. Edgeguarding will kill you more than the distance of your recovery will, so that aspect is a bigger deal to me. The speed and aimability lets you mix up your recovery more than people give it credit for too.

Another edit: I also think that Roy somewhat masquerades as a rush down character with his style, but hates shields too much to be consistent with it. Roy can cover a lot of ground very quickly and threatens pretty large areas of the stage. He can also get a large variety of different strings dependent on DI, percentage, your blood type, phase of the moon, your zodiac sign, wind direction and many other little things that affect his combo game. Also again, his endlag is bad, punishing him HARD on shield paired with him being combo food.

I feel like the way Zoramine put it really fits it best, he's a bait and punish character. He uses the fact that he can so easily threaten combos and KOs to his advantage to apply pressure, feint, and punish his opponents. Playing Roy is a good exercise in creativity. That's this novice's perspective.

 

[Zoramine Fae]

I still think it's unfair to say his recovery is garbage. It fails a bit when it comes to distance, but that's just one aspect of his recovery, and I find I still can recover from a pretty good distance. Edgeguarding will kill you more than the distance of your recovery will, so that aspect is a bigger deal to me. The speed and aimability lets you mix up your recovery more than people give it credit for too.

Another edit: I also think that Roy somewhat masquerades as a rush down character with his style, but hates shields too much to be consistent with it. Roy can cover a lot of ground very quickly and threatens pretty large areas of the stage. He can also get a large variety of different strings dependent on DI, percentage, your blood type, phase of the moon, your zodiac sign, wind direction and many other little things that affect his combo game. Also again, his endlag is bad, punishing him HARD on shield paired with him being combo food.

I feel like the way Zoramine put it really fits it best, he's a bait and punish character. He uses the fact that he can so easily threaten combos and KOs to his advantage to apply pressure, feint, and punish his opponents. Playing Roy is a good exercise in creativity. That's this novice's perspective.

Its speed is its whole problem; it isn't as fast as, say, Mario, Marcina, or even Link's for that matter. That's why edgeguarding is harsher against Roy; he doesn't snap immediately but takes his leisure time doing so. Aimability is nice, but the fact you can occasionally screw it up and has too many directions are why it kinda evens out there. Maybe garbage isn't a correct word but below-average is. It's definitely not in the top recovery moves out there.

I loved that line with combos. I might have to steal that.

And thanks for how I put the character!

 

[ILOVESMASH]

Mid tier. He's got a lot of strong tools, particularly his overtuned SH Nair, among other great moves like Jab, D-Tilt, Side-B, FAir, etc. This combined with his incredible mobility and SHFF game leads to him having a solid neutral game. He has some really nice combos that deal high damage, such as F-Throw to Side B, F-Throw to Nair, Nair to almost any of his other aerials, D-Tilt to Side-B etc., strong juggling capabilities and pretty good kill power in most of his moves (although his KO setups are rather limited compared to other characters, relying on Uair to Bair/Fair and Nair Hit 1 into Blazer / F-Tilt mostly). Compared to other fast fallers, Roy's disadvantageous state is pretty decent as well since he is able to escape most Juggle / strings with his great aerial mobility, and his low landing lag aeriels with good hitboxes able to protect him while landing (Uair is really good at doing this since it decreases the size of his hurtbox, provides coverage on both sides of him, and sets up nicely into bair for damage / kills). He has some really major weakness though such as being easy to combo and edgeguard, preventing me from placing him in high tier. His results compared to most other characters is poor (though to be fair, he was released much later than most of the roster) which is the main thing keeping him from upper mid in my eyes.

 

[Jamble]

I would argue that talking tiers in general completely detracts from the point of substantive character analysis sort of in the same way that number ratings detracts from game reviews. People will see characters placed lower on tiers and not even pay half a thought as to why. People remember an arbitrary tier setting and remember it more than any of the character's actual traits. I personally find that incredibly frustrating, and it makes me sort of an anti-tierist. Roy is one of the characters that suffers the most from that sort of attitude. His strengths lend really well to my own playstyle, and his weaknesses are tradeoffs I'm happy to make. That's why I feel more than picking a high tier, you need to pick a character whose style suits you.

But I'm getting off a bit on a tangent here. I'm not sure I agree that being combo food is much of a game breaking weakness anyhow. A lot of characters have that problem, and it's one that can be alleviated at least somewhat by good DI too. I will still steadfastly insist that Roy is not edgeguarded half as easily as people claim, Blazer and his great aerials provide some okay recovery mixups, and I rarely run into issues being edgeguarded. I more often run into the issue of distance on his recovery than being edgeguarded. Roy's bigger weakness is that any halfway adequate defensive play can shut him down. When he gets something started (through smart use of mixups and sour spots on his disjoint), he can be downright brutal. Toward a smart opponent, it's easier said than done, especially since he struggles against fast characters with projectiles. Personally, if Roy were to get a buff, I would actually like Flare Blade to have a sort of shieldbreaker effect. It would make shield less ridiculously safe against a character who already has a very vulnerable playstyle. He'd still struggle against shield a lot. It should honestly always be that way. But it'd give him another option that would make players think twice before automatically abusing shield against him.