Zelda match-up thread (The sassier Zelda)

[Berserker.]

vs

Discuss

Also, I believe I used the right emote

 

[KuroganeHammer]

Have a field day.

Things Shulk has over Zelda:

- You outrange her
- You outprioritize her
- You outdamage her
- You outcamp her
- You kill faster than she does

Literally just get a moderate % lead and camp her and force her to approach, once she has to approach she's SCREWED because the only moves she has that aid her approach are... dash grab and dash attack............. UMM....

Respect the Elevator and she has nothing. You MUSTN'T miss space aerials against her shield or you'll die at 70% to Elevator. It's still a frame 8 OoS option that's really strong, but if you get hit by it, DI away from her. More often than not she'll miss the DI and you can just fast fall and kill her.

She can kill you at 70% with a hard read that's incredibly high risk, high reward, but if she screws up she's DED.

 

[Berserker.]

For some reference, I got the elevator KO percentages from @ BJN39 : Shulk dies at 76% when hit by the elevator (No DI, Vanilla stance, 3DS version)

Regarding the match up, I feel like Shulk can really just walk all over Zelda while abusing his range with speed or jump art (land that jump art combo cheese on Zelda for an early kill~). With buster, you can space your tilts and aerials. and maybe string n-air to f-tilt or f-smash to rack up damage quickly. I think any art is fine to use against Zelda. Smash art may be a bit risky since your more likely to get killed by the elevator at a lower percentage. I've never tried using shield art against elevator which may yield interesting results. Oh and when Zelda uses Farore's wind, I'd shield in case she teleports right in front of you in an attempt to get a KO.

Zelda (surprisingly) isn't THAT scary up close. Her fastest ground attack is d-smash, and d-tilt. All which come out at frame 5. Same as Shulk's jab (frame 5). Her jab comes out at frame 11 but it has little to no ending lag. Dash attack is frame 6. Her grab comes out at frame 10. Her dash and pivot grab come out at frame 11 so lol. Well, this isn't to say that Zelda's frame speed is as bad as Shulk's.

Just slap +2. I guess. If I really need to dump a number somewhere.

If you wanna beat Shulk, I say you bait him into whiffing and punish his end lag. Shield grab his aerials. Elevator him when he's in Smash art.

I'm sure battlefield is good against Zelda. Halberd, you might wanna strike that because of the stage ceiling being really low.

 

[Seki_]

I will attempt to be unbiased because I hate playing vs Shulk.

So Shulk is sort of weird to talk about with any character because of Monando Arts, and Zelda has up and down sides for fighting each art. Jump makes Shulk ungimpable, but due to some of Zelda's earlier kill setups Jump is mostly high risk for low reward. Jump can be something of a go-to however, since Shulk's aerial spacing is absolutely atrocious to try and deal with for a Zelda. Speed is most of what makes this a hard MU for Zelda to play. Once in Speed art, Fair is something Zelda needs to be very very scared of. Even with lower jumps, getting gimped off the sides is something Shulk has an easier time on Zelda than most characters (due to her lack of a fast space-y aerial move, and Farore's Wind having startup lag). Speed from what I understand makes Shulk a rushdown character for its duration, and Zelda vs rushdowns is a royal pain to deal with. Shield does its usual stuff. Makes Shulk unkillable up to roughly 140% by basically anything. I haven't done any testing with Televators on Sheild Shulk, but I imagine the setups are much more difficult. Buster is risky as usual, but with Zelda especially and her short strings of 15%-20% turn into short strings of 30% combos with kill options showing up at around 90%. Zelda however is a very light character that's easy to juggle, and easy to kill under the right circumstances. Speaking of those circumstances how about Smash mode? Smash mode is Shulk's response to Zelda's early kill options, which gives him his own kills on Zelda at 90%. Zelda gets about the same benefit from this as Buster mode, don't take risks, get whatever you can off, and abuse the triggerhappy nature of the Shulk while he's in the mode.

That's just covering Monado arts though. Looking at the grand scheme of things, Zelda has to take risks beyond any level of comfort. Fair and Nair just wall out Zelda completely, forcing her to approach for fear of getting gimped off the sides. As you should know, being forced to approach is not a place Zelda wants to be in. In terms of the neutral, Speed mode dash attacks will punish almost any unsafe option, and fishing for Low% combos is unforgivably dangerous against a Buster Shulk. Most of what Zelda will be doing is getting in her Bread and Butter combos with Dtilt, Utilt, and Dthrow (as well as looking for Televator opportunities, so don't give her any!). Shulk on the other hand has plenty of options. Almost every useful move outranges anything safe of Zelda's. If the Shulk respects Televator and Neutral B, with good Monando Art usage, this matchup heavily favors Shulk.

As far as Customs go, Zelda's customs are almost all trash. So enjoy Hyper arts to all of your little Monado Boy hearts' contents.

63:37
is what I personally would place this MU at because I like weird numbers

-edit-
Zelda also hates platforms so take her to stages like Battlefield, Lylat, and Halberd

 

[S.F.L.R_9]

Alright, I main both of these characters and I've played this matchup a ton.

Zelda suffers a ton from characters who outrange her because she has little to no safe approach options. Shulk has the best range in the game, so this is a huge problem for her. Her best option will be to bait Shulk into an option since he has a lot of lag on most moves, and punish with a grab, dtilt, or whatever, but Shulk just needs to play carefully and avoid that. Shulk's main goal in this MU is to outspace Zelda since she doesn't have many options from far away and can be rather dangerous up close. I'd recommend Speed and Buster for this.

Since I just talked about Art usage, I'l go into further detail. Jump will have the same uses as usual, but be careful with it on due to the extra damage taken: Zelda has some really damaging low percent strings such as dtilt --> jab --> dthrow --> nair. Speed is very useful in neutral, as per usual. Buster is very good IF you can keep Zelda out with nair, dtilt, and MALLC bair/fair.

I didn't talk about Shield or Smash in that paragraph because I need to talk about something else...the elevator. If any of you Shulk mains don't know, the elevator is just a nickname for Farore's Wind disappear to reappear. This move is SOOOOO DANGEROUS. In any Art, you're going to want to be extremely careful with how you hit Zelda's shield. If you leave yourself open, oh look, a frame 7 OOS move that kills you at 76% with no rage. With about 150% rage, it'll kill you at about 45% in Vanilla. This is why I think Smash is a horrible art in this matchup. With no DI or rage on Wii U FD, the elevator kills Smash Shulk at 45%. With max rage (150%), the KO sparks start flashing at 14%. Since Smash also does less shield pushback due to lower damage output, you're also more susceptible to the elevator OOS.
Regarding Shield, it's very good in this MU since it'll make the 2nd hit of Farore's (the one with a ton of knockback) not connect until verrrryy high percents.

When recovering, be super careful. Zelda has arguably one of the best spikes in the game and she can go super deep. If customs are on, watch out for the Phantom because the best and most commonly used one does a ton of damage and semispikes you at a horrible angle. If Zelda also just lets the Phantom sit at the ledge while you use Air Slash, you can end up sliding right past the ledge and getting gimped because the Phantom slows your momentum if you try to go through it.

Platforms are lolsobad for Zelda, so take her somewhere with them, BUT NOT TOWN AND CITY OR HALBERD. In this MU, low ceilings are your enemy and Zelda's bff :^)

Imo, : 60:40
I know I said a ton of scary stuff that she can do, but just remember that she's still Zelda lol. Exploit her weaknesses and she can have a lot of trouble

 

[Seki_]

BUT NOT TOWN AND CITY OR HALBERD

shhhhhhhhh sflr we must exploit their young monado boy minds

 

[JigglyZelda003]

i dont think Shulk has so much better KO power than her outside of Smash art, Shulk to me seems to die at average percents. Unfortunately Zelda is strong so getting countered hurts >.> Zelda still has ranged options to bother Shulk if he doesn't have a lead that can harass him from across stage.

Zelda should mostly be focused on trying to make Shulk whiff and punish laggy moves like other people have said because Shulk has a sword. Zelda doesn't like swords, but he is kind of comboable so its ok just frustrating while we try to hustle our way into making him whiff or mispace.

everyone else has pretty much said everything else i was going to say so i'm here to watch for our matchup thread
40:60

 

[KuroganeHammer]

Shulk has one of the strongest fsmashes in the game, rivaling fsmash the character herself

It's also faster than Zelda's fsmash

Bair/dsmash/smash art throws are also notable kill options

 

[Masonomace]

So much input has been said to this so I'll share something not mentioned:
Anytime I've versed a Zelda using Dins Fire to hit me while I'm off-stage, it's usually answered with the obvious airdodge. A multi-tasking moment we can make due with is deactivating the current Art / cycle to Jump or Speed during hitstun, & by the time Dins Fire is about to detonate around us, that's the best time to airdodge right as the Jump or Speed Art activates so that we get the instant increase of air speed.

One way of recovering lazily is having the Jump Art already active, & using Vision while holding forward for the Dins Fire. We'll utilize the decent amount of aerial momentum to recover but this isn't recommended but eh. Dash Vision does this far better but the counter frame window is shorter so be careful for that.

 

[Macchiato]

I give it 50-50.

I'm tired so I'll make this short

We can gimp him
Kill him early
Our moves come out faster

He can pressure us
Rack up damage faster
Outranges us

Also be ready when he's on smash because we can get a very early lead or comeback.

Customs help us both so the best set for Zelda here is 1213

 

[r_greening1]

I say that has a 100:0 matchup with .

Shulk severely lacks in the sass department. He tries to "really feel it", but it's all just a sad attempt to mindgame Zelda.
Also, we can kill ourselves before any Shulk can kill us, so who's the real winner here, huh?

 

[Berserker.]

I say that has a 100:0 matchup with .

Shulk severely lacks in the sass department. He tries to "really feel it", but it's all just a sad attempt to mindgame Zelda.
Also, we can kill ourselves before any Shulk can kill us, so who's the real winner here, huh?

I can actually agree with this

 

[Berserker.]

Double post for announcing:

Will mark this as +2 for Shulk. Stay sassy gurrrls

 

[BJN39]

Double post for announcing:

Will mark this as +2 for Shulk. Stay sassy gurrrls

Uhh, pardon the necro-esque post heeya, but I'm just curious @ Berserker. What ratio would you equate to "+2"

 

[Berserker.]

+2 means solid advantage. Something like 60:40 or 65:35/70:30 if your a penissist