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Official Zelda Patch Discussion - Patch 4.0 Incoming 7/30 (Version History Available in OP)

BJN39

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Just getting ahead of the mess since we always get a bunch of patch talk threads on these boards! Feel free to discuss any discoveries regarding Zelda in future patches (as released) here instead of making a new thread. I’ll be trying to build official patch notes for zelda as we discern any or all changes. :)

Let’s all get our placebo jush

1.10 - December 7th 2018
Code:
No Chanages
1.20 - December 13th 2018
Code:
Nothing
2.00 - January 29th 2019
Code:
Nada.
3.00 - April 17th 2019
Code:
Zip.
3.10 - May 30th 2019
Code:
You get the drill, sis.
4.00 - July 30th 2019
Code:
PENDING
 
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BJN39

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TLDR this thread is now just a bunch of Zelda mains sitting awkwardly in a room looking at each other and not saying anything LMAO



Still now this is here for any future patches or patch discussion. Last time we used the thread to talk patch ideas too
 

Brinzy

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I'm not even going to try to pretend to know what they base these things off of. I just wanna know why it's ok for Zelda to have the lag she does on SH fair/bair but other characters - who already has relatively short lag on much better aerials - got their lag reduced even more.

They literally buffed Mewtwo and Palutena teleports for snapping the ledge. I don't know if Zelda's was really better to begin with or if they think that players want to maintain mixups since she has a powerful hitbox, but that was an awkward realization nonetheless.

Anyway Zelda obviously did something sassy that they didn't like. It's the only explanation I have.
 

Kannazuki

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IAnyway Zelda obviously did something sassy that they didn't like. It's the only explanation I have.
I suppose they find her kit to be the right level of "balanced" currently tho we all know better than that.
 

Downshift

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They literally buffed Mewtwo and Palutena teleports for snapping the ledge. I don't know if Zelda's was really better to begin with or if they think that players want to maintain mixups since she has a powerful hitbox, but that was an awkward realization nonetheless.
When I SD'd as Palutena fro not grabbing the ledge with the Warp, I switched to Zelda, did the same thing and was fine. Same with Mewtwo.
Back to Palu and I SD'd again.

From what I could gather, for some reason it seemed like Palu would only snap to the ledge if she was facing it after Warping, like the FE characters for example. Otherwise she just bounced off it and basically stage spiked herself. Zelda and Mewtwo already grab the edge even if they're facing the other way, like most fighters do.

I'm not sure what other buffs I'd want for Zelda other than frame data improvements or more KO knockback on smashes. What I'd wanted since Smash4 was for Phantom to be store-able like Charge Shot, or to just scrap it and turn into Shiek again. Doesn't look like we're getting either of those now though.
 

Nintendan

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Let's just keep in mind there's over 70 characters and there's not like an awful lot of data to go off right now. It's easy for us to see areas that Zelda needs buffs in, but when there's all the other fighters to worry about, it makes sense why she might not have gotten any changes.
Plus it looks like they didn't want to go too crazy with any changes this patch, mostly just QoL buffs for most characters and some bigger nerfs to things that stand out to them as super strong/cheesy (like Chromicide giving Chrom the win). Little surprised we didn't see any QoL for Zelda too but later down the line I think we'll start seeing some.
 

Aussie1024

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Let's just keep in mind there's over 70 characters and there's not like an awful lot of data to go off right now. It's easy for us to see areas that Zelda needs buffs in, but when there's all the other fighters to worry about, it makes sense why she might not have gotten any changes.
Plus it looks like they didn't want to go too crazy with any changes this patch, mostly just QoL buffs for most characters and some bigger nerfs to things that stand out to them as super strong/cheesy (like Chromicide giving Chrom the win). Little surprised we didn't see any QoL for Zelda too but later down the line I think we'll start seeing some.
Preach it. Plus there's a lot of room for future patches that will change her. We just gotta work with what we have and hope we get the changes we want down the line.
 

BJN39

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Plus, back in SSB4 zelda was one of the chars who got her first actual balance changes a couple of patches in, so this isn’t a new trend for her. I recall them being more liberal with alterations and focused on needing characters later on. Definitely I can see them at least going and fixing all characters’ badly-connecting multihits.

I made a list of some bare minimum things I’d love to see them address that seem fairly possible judging by what they were fine doing in this patch. Maybe I’ll post them later.

Honestly if Nintendo has their own “patch notes language” we should start adopting it when we talk about Zelda buffs/fixes on social media. Technically they wouldn’t want to acknowledge that we can read all of their hitbox coding so if we use their terms to describe what is needed to fix say, NAir, then it can make the claim sound more legit imo.
 
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Aussie1024

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Honestly if Nintendo has their own “patch notes language” we should start adopting it when we talk about Zelda buffs/fixes on social media.
Sounds good to me. Let's do it
 

Time2mosh

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In all honesty, just give us back Sm4sh DTilt and I will be happy, there's also some weird interaction with the knight where in some situations it can push the opponent with just the wind box and deal no damage idk if this is working as intended or what, it's always resulted in happy mistake gimps for me lol.
 

Codebox

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Plus, back in SSB4 zelda was one of the chars who got her first actual balance changes a couple of patches in, so this isn’t a new trend for her. I recall them being more liberal with alterations and focused on needing characters later on. Definitely I can see them at least going and fixing all characters’ badly-connecting multihits.

I made a list of some bare minimum things I’d love to see them address that seem fairly possible judging by what they were fine doing in this patch. Maybe I’ll post them later.

Honestly if Nintendo has their own “patch notes language” we should start adopting it when we talk about Zelda buffs/fixes on social media. Technically they wouldn’t want to acknowledge that we can read all of their hitbox coding so if we use their terms to describe what is needed to fix say, NAir, then it can make the claim sound more legit imo.
We'll just have to be more vocal about it. We can't let Zelda slide this time around, we have to make sure the next patch just gives her the Mii Brawler buffs across the board. Nair and D-tilt are good starts, but decreased aeriel lag (or reduced lag from the freeze frame) would be an instant. Take to Social Media!
 

Graestra

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It would actually be a little funny if she never gets touched and this becomes a thread where we all just akwardly sit after every patch. Hopefully that doesn’t happen though.
 

StoicPhantom

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I'll be the contrarian here and say that I'm honestly ok with there not being any changes. I feel like I want to explore her meta more, without worrying about dealing with any significant changes. I don't feel like there are any glaring flaws, like Palu's and Mewtwo's Up-B recovery and am fine with where she stands currently.

That Famitsu article Sakurai posted was pretty interesting, stating that no character did significantly better or worse than others, so it's understandable they didn't make any significant changes, outside the obvious. Although there were some eyebrow raising things like DK's Fair being buffed for seemingly no reason.
In all honesty, just give us back Sm4sh DTilt and I will be happy, there's also some weird interaction with the knight where in some situations it can push the opponent with just the wind box and deal no damage idk if this is working as intended or what, it's always resulted in happy mistake gimps for me lol.
I think this is caused by the shield version of the Phantom, acting as a wall similar to Smash 4 Palutena's reflector and the sword not hitting the opponent. Can lead to it pushing opponents under the stage, if done right, for some hilarious kills.
 

Aussie1024

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I'll be the contrarian here and say that I'm honestly ok with there not being any changes. I feel like I want to explore her meta more, without worrying about dealing with any significant changes.
I honestly agree. Now that I've given myself time to really think about the patch, I'm okay with her not getting any changes. Like you, I believe there's a lot to explore within her meta. I do think the changes to her will come in later patches, but I'm still pretty happy with what she has now.
 

Dcas

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I'll be the contrarian here and say that I'm honestly ok with there not being any changes. I feel like I want to explore her meta more, without worrying about dealing with any significant changes. I don't feel like there are any glaring flaws, like Palu's and Mewtwo's Up-B recovery and am fine with where she stands currently.

That Famitsu article Sakurai posted was pretty interesting, stating that no character did significantly better or worse than others, so it's understandable they didn't make any significant changes, outside the obvious. Although there were some eyebrow raising things like DK's Fair being buffed for seemingly no reason.

I think this is caused by the shield version of the Phantom, acting as a wall similar to Smash 4 Palutena's reflector and the sword not hitting the opponent. Can lead to it pushing opponents under the stage, if done right, for some hilarious kills.
It really depends on your take, Zelda in Ultimate is the best iteration of Zelda without a doubt. Its actually functioning and is not a meme character, thats for sure. If you dont know the MU you can get wrecked by Zelda so thats something.

But if you see it as been a higher tier character, with decent chances vs top tiers then we are in dire need of several buffs. Mostly to her ground speed which is atrocious.
 

Codebox

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I agree that Ultimate Zelda is the best incarnation in any Smash game (maybe not counting games like SSF2 where she's excellent) because it feels like using a character rather than a walking 3D model with random gimmicks thrown in. That being said she still needs some buffs if she hopes to compete this time around.. And unlike previous games they aren't far away.

It really depends on your take, Zelda in Ultimate is the best iteration of Zelda without a doubt. Its actually functioning and is not a meme character, thats for sure. If you dont know the MU you can get wrecked by Zelda so thats something.

But if you see it as been a higher tier character, with decent chances vs top tiers then we are in dire need of several buffs. Mostly to her ground speed which is atrocious.
What buffs would you recommend?

I wonder how a board about rating Zelda's moveset in Ultimate would be a good thing? What does everyone think of the idea?
 

Dcas

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I agree that Ultimate Zelda is the best incarnation in any Smash game (maybe not counting games like SSF2 where she's excellent) because it feels like using a character rather than a walking 3D model with random gimmicks thrown in. That being said she still needs some buffs if she hopes to compete this time around.. And unlike previous games they aren't far away.



What buffs would you recommend?

I wonder how a board about rating Zelda's moveset in Ultimate would be a good thing? What does everyone think of the idea?
Taking her 1.43 running speed to something like 1.55-6 would move her an entire tier up possible high tier.
Reducing the lag of ftilt or extending the range.
Reducing 1 or 2 frames of nair and make it drag you down.

With those 3, zelda would be high tier imo, right now is sitting somehwere in mid. And as i said, literally the only thing she badly needs is moving speed.
 

Brinzy

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Taking her 1.43 running speed to something like 1.55-6 would move her an entire tier up possible high tier.
Reducing the lag of ftilt or extending the range.
Reducing 1 or 2 frames of nair and make it drag you down.

With those 3, zelda would be high tier imo, right now is sitting somehwere in mid. And as i said, literally the only thing she badly needs is moving speed.
I really don't think she's at a mid tier level. She has been blessed with having an actual neutral thanks to jab and phantom buffs and really solid throws, although I don't understand why a slower grab has been a consistent identity for her. I think with your changes (which are good), she'd still be lower mid. A lot of characters in this game just have far less commitment to their abilities than she does. Having played with the Fire Emblem brats, even the slower ones, it's like night and day what some speed and good aerials will do for you in this game.

A mobility buff would be the biggest thing she could receive. It's ridiculous that she is essentially a heavy character in terms of how she has to commit to attacks, but she lacks weight, range (comparable to heavies), and speed. And superarmor if you don't count Nayru's, but I guess Nayru's is good enough. She doesn't need to be a frame warrior like Peach, but Zelda's overall traits are lacking in comparison to Peach and to a lot of heavies.

The run speed thing is great; I also think a little more horizontal air speed could go a long way. I also want a dtilt buff, because I don't understand what this is supposed to be. People say it combos but I've literally never done dtilt -> lightning kick in this game. Maybe I am just bad.

And, I think she should be able to auto-cancel SH fair/bair. It's absurd that these aerials, which really aren't good but are her core identity, have that much lag on them. Meanwhile, they buffed landing lag on better aerials across the board. With the way a lot characters can just aerial at you and act immediately when they land, I don't see why the hell her aerials work the way they do. Especially given how short-hopped aerials are weaker, so Zelda is probably the worst she's ever been in the air.

The character just has glaring design flaws. They need to compensate for these flaws in some way, or she's gonna flounder at the bottom of the tier list. Again. I will try to up my game up and actually attend tournaments this time around, although I only play like 2-3 times a month already.
 
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Rickster

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I do agree that something needs to be done with Dtilt. It kinda just...doesn't serve a good purpose for her right now. Jab is faster, and still hits low. It also can combo/mix up better.

Like, it doesn't have to be as good as Smash 4 (guaranteed kicks every Dtilt would be a little too much even for Zelda imo) but right now it lacks any meaningful purpose and is really niche.

I'm really hoping they give her SH kicks again since they've adjusted AC windows for other characters. In their current state I think they're the clunkiest part of her kit. Flubbing a kick OoS feels sooo bad.

Other than these issues, Nair, and Phantom's blindspot, I have no real qualms with how she is atm
 

Codebox

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I'll never understand why they changed her kicks the way they did from Melee. As awful as Melee Zelda was her kicks were the core of her metagame.. Why change two spacing tools into a difficult to commit punish option? I can see making ground moves punishable, but why aeriels? Really I think adjusting the AC window and giving back her Melee styled kicks (or kicks of a similar purpose) would easily bump Zelda up an entire tier. Along with run speed of course. (at least her kicks are better than Smash 4 and Brawl)

Just getting her out of bottom 10 run speed would be a godsend. (She's so close at 8th, but so far to being out of there. I'd at least make her as fast as Wolf.)

Really I could take or leave any other buffs, but if Zelda gains buffs in Speed, D-tilt, Phantom Blindspot, Nair fixes and SH AC Lighting Kicks she's pretty much set to go. I mean they gave her an actual throw game, Unlike Smash 4 this Zelda has potential, let's hope the next or future patches give her the buffs she needs. Let's make it vocal.
 

Ffamran

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I also think a little more horizontal air speed could go a long way.
Zelda's air speed isn't that bad. It's about average at 1.092 which puts her at 36-37, tied with PAC-MAN: http://kuroganehammer.com/Ultimate/AirSpeed. Ignore Fox's dumb, 15% air speed increase from Smash 4's 0.96 to Ultimate's 1.11. Fox used to have slower air speed than Zelda in Smash 4. Zelda's air speed was 1.04, so a 5% increase in Ultimate like most characters.

What Zelda might want more is better air acceleration, either to the max additional value or the base value. I think most characters kept their air acceleration values which for Zelda is 0.055 for max additional and 0.01 for base, meaning her total air acceleration is 0.065: http://kuroganehammer.com/Ultimate/AirAcceleration.

Bumping the max additional value to 0.07 to 0.08 would make her average, as she'd be able to hit a 0.08 to 0.09 total air acceleration. For instance, PAC-MAN has a max additional value of 0.07 giving him a 0.08 total air acceleration with his 0.01 base value meaning that while he and Zelda share the same air speed, PAC-MAN reaches his top air speed faster than her.

Alternatively, she could be more unique and have a higher base value to her air acceleration as most characters have 0.01 for their base value. Only three characters have below 0.01: Diddy and Luigi at 0 and Dr. Mario at 0.007648 because weird as hell design choices. Dr. Mario's stats are calculated by putting equipment on Mario because that's a sane idea compared to actually giving him different numbers than Mario. Anyway, the base value for Zelda's air acceleration could be increased to 0.025 which with her current max additional of 0.055 would give her a 0.08 total air acceleration. 0.035 would basically be like having Samus's air acceleration of 0.05 max additional and 0.04 base for a 0.09 total.

It probably won't be game-changing considering how Zelda's aerials work, but it will let her reach her top air speed faster which would help when moving around and recovering when she's drifting back to the stage.
 
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Brinzy

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Ffamran Ffamran yeah thanks for that clarification - that's actually what I was thinking about when I mentioned her air speed. I've fallen just short of punishes that I didn't think I'd miss because of that delay in getting to her maximum air speed. It isn't horrendous, but it's just annoying enough on top of her aerials in general.
 

Ffamran

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Also, the real buff Zelda needs to be top tier: patching back her fist pump idle animation that they made for Ultimate, but decided to not include it in the release of the game because Zelda reasons.
 
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StoicPhantom

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It really depends on your take, Zelda in Ultimate is the best iteration of Zelda without a doubt. Its actually functioning and is not a meme character, thats for sure. If you dont know the MU you can get wrecked by Zelda so thats something.

But if you see it as been a higher tier character, with decent chances vs top tiers then we are in dire need of several buffs. Mostly to her ground speed which is atrocious.
I just don't see how getting a speed buff, will make things any different. Zelda's kit isn't exactly slow, it's more so precise. Having disjoints helps considerably and she doesn't really need Mario like frame data to keep up. Boosting her speed, might make it easier to chase, but her kit still wouldn't allow approaching to be any better.

Speed works on characters like Fox, because they have wide hitboxs and linear knockback. You don't have to worry about being as precise, and can keep moving in a straight line without needing significant directional changes. That's why Fox's Nair is the way it is, to help prevent any misses.

Zelda on the other hand, has sweet-spots and precise hitboxs and needs to properly space. Giving her too much speed, will go the other way and make it more difficult to land the sweet-spots and precise hitboxs, since it will be easier to overshoot and miss. With practice, one might be able to land them more consistently, but against other fast characters, that is a lot of fast moving hitboxs and hurtboxs. And I can't think of too many characters off the top of my head, that have both speed and sour-spots, outside of like one or two moves.

And I know people want the Nair and D-Tilt combos back, but I think Ultimate was designed specifically to prevent things like that. If we look at Zelda specifically, Nair would open up an Up-B combo, similar to Smash 4. That was fine in 4, since Zelda was a trash character, but it's not fine in Ultimate, where she is not. People already get tilted, when they find out they can die at like 80 on a shield whiff(my friend lol). Imagine how they would feel, if you told them you can do the same, with what is essentially a disjointed low committal frame 7 combo setup.

Similar situation with D-Tilt. That already opens up Fair at lower percents, in specific situations, imagine if you can do it at actual kill percents. You would get a similar combo setup to Nair and KO anyone at like 80 or earlier, if close to the ledge. And if you could link it into Up-B, you can get a mid percent KO, from anywhere on the stage. That is not okay and they would either reverse it or nerf Zelda's KO power and ruin one of the most fun and unique things about Zelda.

Overall, I feel Zelda treads a thin line between broken and "BROKEN!!!". If you tweak her base stats too much one way or another, she can be too good or too bad. She already has quite a lot of good things as it is, if you make it any easier to land her stupidly powerful KO options, she will be too much. Even setting aside KOs, her knockback is significant enough, she can instantly put people in disadvantage, at even low percents. Giving her too much movement speed, could lead to early edgeguards, with her amazing advantage state, and not give her opponents much of a chance to counter.

I definitely think more careful consideration is needed by Sakurai and team, if we are going to change her, as she is already fairly balanced. We need to remember as mains of a character, we are going to feel the deficiencies more strongly, than other characters and players. Every player always rates their main lower than what others would. If you look at the top players in 4, they always had their mains rated lower, than the official tier list had them. We don't feel our strengths as much, but other players definitely do.

If you take a look at Zelda's strengths, she has an incredibly difficult to punish recovery, that can also double as a good punish tool, already a huge plus in a game like this, power equal or greater than a heavy, disjoints, an amazing shield game, a reflector, one of the best defensive tools in Nayru's Love, one of the best spacing tools in Phantom, one of the best advantage states, an amazing array of edgeguarding tools, and a projectile that can kill.

Her weaknesses are below average speed and stats, light weight, short range, easily comboed, has great difficulty getting back, has one of the worst disadvantage states, sour-spots and needing precision in general, and a mediocre neutral.

I feel like that is a decent trade off, when all is said and done and I don't think anymore reasonable tweaks, will be all that relevant overall.


Having played with the Fire Emblem brats, even the slower ones, it's like night and day what some speed and good aerials will do for you in this game.
Up your Parry game. Parrys and strong shield games in general, can shut down sword characters. There can still be problem ones, like Pit and Marth/Lucina, but overall those long lasting moves, can be a detriment in that regard.
People say it combos but I've literally never done dtilt -> lightning kick in this game.
I don't know if it is true exactly, but I've done it around 40 or so, multiple times.
And, I think she should be able to auto-cancel SH fair/bair. It's absurd that these aerials, which really aren't good but are her core identity, have that much lag on them. Meanwhile, they buffed landing lag on better aerials across the board. With the way a lot characters can just aerial at you and act immediately when they land, I don't see why the hell her aerials work the way they do. Especially given how short-hopped aerials are weaker, so Zelda is probably the worst she's ever been in the air.
I'll never understand why they changed her kicks the way they did from Melee. As awful as Melee Zelda was her kicks were the core of her metagame.. Why change two spacing tools into a difficult to commit punish option? I can see making ground moves punishable, but why aeriels? Really I think adjusting the AC window and giving back her Melee styled kicks (or kicks of a similar purpose) would easily bump Zelda up an entire tier. Along with run speed of course. (at least her kicks are better than Smash 4 and Brawl)
Well, you guys got to put that in perspective a little. You have a single digit frame move(I think) that KOs between 60-110 depending on weight, DI, and blast zone distance, can be used anywhere, does absurd damage, and is relatively easy to hit the sweet-spot compared to others. Simply dashing back to bait a chase and then dashing forward and Fairing, can net an early KO. You can use it OoS, you can use it as an edgeguard, you can sometimes combo into it, and you can hop over an attack and fast fall Bair as a punish. It can also potentially break shields, if used in conjunction with Phantom or other moves. It is a very versatile KO option, despite it's insane power, and is comparable to Wolf's Bair, while I think being quicker and having the ability to use it front and back. Of course it would need to be risky and slightly difficult to land, to balance things out.
 

Rickster

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Also, the real buff Zelda needs to be top tier: patching back her fist pump idle animation that they made for Ultimate, but decided to not include it in the release of the game because Zelda reasons.
Omg yes she only has 2 idle poses now and it's gross

She and Peach used to be the queens of idling smh
 

Ffamran

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Speed works on characters like Fox, because they have wide hitboxs and linear knockback. You don't have to worry about being as precise, and can keep moving in a straight line without needing significant directional changes. That's why Fox's Nair is the way it is, to help prevent any misses.
Bowser, Charizard, Chrom, Cloud, DK, Little Mac, Lucina, Marth, Meta Knight, Mewtwo, Ridley, Roy, and kind of Pichu, Pikachu, the Pits, Sheik, and Yoshi would have been better examples for your fast-moving characters with "wide hitboxes and linear knockback."

Except for Utilt, Up Smash, and Side Smash, all of Fox's attacks are linear and don't cover a lot of range. Part of that is because he's small, he's the same height as (retconned) Little Mac, and the other part is how he fights as an unarmed martial artist using primarily straight-hitting kicks. Some of his moves have high active frames like dash attack, Utilt, Nair, Fair, and Dair, but they're also mainly close his body. Uair is the the most extreme example since Fox does a frontflip facing the screen or the background. Falco actually the does the same move, more noticeable in Brawl and Smash 4, but he faces his opponent, so the hitbox arcs above him rather than hitting only above him. And yet despite the hitbox, Fox players have been able to juggle with Uair very well to the point where Fox's Uair is a staple move. I'd say the main reason for why Fox's Nair doesn't miss much is because it's a static hitbox that has high active frames giving you so much time to hit with it as much as its hitbox is fairly generous like other "sex kick" Nairs. That, and Fox can constantly spam it, so even if he does miss with it, he can try again fairly quickly.

Fox is a high precision character given his hitboxes and that he's a glass cannon who cannot afford to get hit as much as other characters due to his low weight and high fall speed and gravity making it easy to combo him. At the same time, Fox also happens to be a very fast-moving character with fast attacks.

Zelda on the other hand, has sweet-spots and precise hitboxes and needs to properly space. Giving her too much speed, will go the other way and make it more difficult to land the sweet-spots and precise hitboxes, since it will be easier to overshoot and miss. With practice, one might be able to land them more consistently, but against other fast characters, that is a lot of fast moving hitboxes and hurtboxes. And I can't think of too many characters off the top of my head, that have both speed and sour-spots, outside of like one or two moves.
I'm not sure what would make her so different from Marth or Roy if she were faster moving. Or Fox, Greninja, Little Mac, Meta Knight, Sheik, and ZSS to name some other characters who move very fast, but also require precision or can be played very precisely. Ignoring Melee Marth and Roy who had their own quirks in that game and Roy not being that fast-moving in Melee, Marth and Roy players constantly have to deal with their sweetspot and sourspot mechanic and in each game, Marth has been moving faster and faster while Roy jumped up from average in Melee to a speed demon in Smash 4. Roy's power lies in hitboxes closest to the Binding Blade's hilt, but Roy also gets a lot from the tipper sourspots. Granted, they use swords, so their moves are safer, but the point still stands where in spite of their movement speed, their players have been able to space and choose their hitboxes.

People are also not asking for Zelda to move stupidly fast. If Zelda ran as fast as Sonic, then I could see players having some trouble, but that kind of dumb speed might benefit her more than hurt her. The movement speed buffs people are asking seem more like quality of life requests. For example, the air acceleration thing. Zelda can still move as slow as she wants if the base value isn't changed, but she can also reach her top air speed faster if the max additional value were higher. You get about the same degree of control as you would now, but in times when you want her to move as fast as possible while in the air, she'd be able to do so quicker.
 

BJN39

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For every argument that Dtilt or NAir leading into her own elevator or kicks and that being bad I just have to say: if Greninja can chain many falling UAirs into almost any move, why is Zelda’s suddenly worse when she’s already overall got worse stats than the frog? If Peach can have a Dtilt that leads into 50% or many characters have Dtilts that lead into potent moves, or HAVE YOU SEEN Ike? It almost feels like half his moveset can string into an UAir KO.

These kinds of things are natural in this game with so many chars, and help strengthen their viability. Zelda had these too, but it feels like both of these move qualities were specifically targeted and snuffed out for Zelda when it c l e a r l y wasn’t because the devs wanted them removed as a design as a whole, just for zelda.

If Zelda could Dtilt to LK it would’ve been perfectly fair in her current state, so would falling NAir to elevator. “She was trash then but not now” doesn’t make that a valid reason to remove them when she’s universally agreed to not be close to the top of the chain, and removing them kind of works against the reasoning that she isn’t ‘trash’ now. Honestly I’m kind of appalled that some people can say she could make high tier right now with so many poorly functioning designs. We’re all beating a dead horse with these two moves but Zelda was done dirty, in kind of a way no one else was. It’s just sketchy that some of her competitively viable strategies were cut down to limit her options.

Now,

If it was really intentional design to get rid of these specifically “broken” things on Zelda then we can expect them to never return. At that point it’s time to find other moves that could be tweaked to create solid and new “broken” options. (Broken being used loosely) is personally opt to have a strong Lightning Kick set or generally solid aerials. That has been a long term short coming for her and it wouldn’t be hard to make the moves impressive. Honestly they should do a thing or two that could come off overpowered because if you actually analyze the potential of even a 1F long but large sweetspot on this move it still only just comes to par in usefulness with other powerful side aerials. Ganon BAir says hi.

So, slight mobility buffs on the ground and air, (bare minimum she should be able to run as fast as Peach, I mean come on) and weight increase (again, she should at least be as heavy as Peach) plus a reliable and faster aerial kit. That would give Zelda a lot more meta growth potential in Ultimate #imo and stuff.
 
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Codebox

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I just don't see how getting a speed buff, will make things any different. Zelda's kit isn't exactly slow, it's more so precise. Having disjoints helps considerably and she doesn't really need Mario like frame data to keep up. Boosting her speed, might make it easier to chase, but her kit still wouldn't allow approaching to be any better.

Speed works on characters like Fox, because they have wide hitboxs and linear knockback. You don't have to worry about being as precise, and can keep moving in a straight line without needing significant directional changes. That's why Fox's Nair is the way it is, to help prevent any misses.

Zelda on the other hand, has sweet-spots and precise hitboxs and needs to properly space. Giving her too much speed, will go the other way and make it more difficult to land the sweet-spots and precise hitboxs, since it will be easier to overshoot and miss. With practice, one might be able to land them more consistently, but against other fast characters, that is a lot of fast moving hitboxs and hurtboxs. And I can't think of too many characters off the top of my head, that have both speed and sour-spots, outside of like one or two moves.

And I know people want the Nair and D-Tilt combos back, but I think Ultimate was designed specifically to prevent things like that. If we look at Zelda specifically, Nair would open up an Up-B combo, similar to Smash 4. That was fine in 4, since Zelda was a trash character, but it's not fine in Ultimate, where she is not. People already get tilted, when they find out they can die at like 80 on a shield whiff(my friend lol). Imagine how they would feel, if you told them you can do the same, with what is essentially a disjointed low committal frame 7 combo setup.

Similar situation with D-Tilt. That already opens up Fair at lower percents, in specific situations, imagine if you can do it at actual kill percents. You would get a similar combo setup to Nair and KO anyone at like 80 or earlier, if close to the ledge. And if you could link it into Up-B, you can get a mid percent KO, from anywhere on the stage. That is not okay and they would either reverse it or nerf Zelda's KO power and ruin one of the most fun and unique things about Zelda.

Overall, I feel Zelda treads a thin line between broken and "BROKEN!!!". If you tweak her base stats too much one way or another, she can be too good or too bad. She already has quite a lot of good things as it is, if you make it any easier to land her stupidly powerful KO options, she will be too much. Even setting aside KOs, her knockback is significant enough, she can instantly put people in disadvantage, at even low percents. Giving her too much movement speed, could lead to early edgeguards, with her amazing advantage state, and not give her opponents much of a chance to counter.

I definitely think more careful consideration is needed by Sakurai and team, if we are going to change her, as she is already fairly balanced. We need to remember as mains of a character, we are going to feel the deficiencies more strongly, than other characters and players. Every player always rates their main lower than what others would. If you look at the top players in 4, they always had their mains rated lower, than the official tier list had them. We don't feel our strengths as much, but other players definitely do.

If you take a look at Zelda's strengths, she has an incredibly difficult to punish recovery, that can also double as a good punish tool, already a huge plus in a game like this, power equal or greater than a heavy, disjoints, an amazing shield game, a reflector, one of the best defensive tools in Nayru's Love, one of the best spacing tools in Phantom, one of the best advantage states, an amazing array of edgeguarding tools, and a projectile that can kill.

Her weaknesses are below average speed and stats, light weight, short range, easily comboed, has great difficulty getting back, has one of the worst disadvantage states, sour-spots and needing precision in general, and a mediocre neutral.

I feel like that is a decent trade off, when all is said and done and I don't think anymore reasonable tweaks, will be all that relevant overall.



Up your Parry game. Parrys and strong shield games in general, can shut down sword characters. There can still be problem ones, like Pit and Marth/Lucina, but overall those long lasting moves, can be a detriment in that regard.

I don't know if it is true exactly, but I've done it around 40 or so, multiple times.



Well, you guys got to put that in perspective a little. You have a single digit frame move(I think) that KOs between 60-110 depending on weight, DI, and blast zone distance, can be used anywhere, does absurd damage, and is relatively easy to hit the sweet-spot compared to others. Simply dashing back to bait a chase and then dashing forward and Fairing, can net an early KO. You can use it OoS, you can use it as an edgeguard, you can sometimes combo into it, and you can hop over an attack and fast fall Bair as a punish. It can also potentially break shields, if used in conjunction with Phantom or other moves. It is a very versatile KO option, despite it's insane power, and is comparable to Wolf's Bair, while I think being quicker and having the ability to use it front and back. Of course it would need to be risky and slightly difficult to land, to balance things out.
Zelda could literally do all those options with her Melee LKs, they could be spaced, combo into each other, sourspot combos into sweetspot, could be SH AC and did good damage. With Ultimate mechanics these would be a having a sword for a foot. By giving us the AC window Zelda's kicks would make up for not only being the same move, but would further increase her lack of neutral. Possibly even her disadvantage state. The only reason it didn't completely save her was because the Melee engine did her no favors along with having a laughably bad design. I'm no expert, in fact I'm still trying to learn the game, but even I dislike how her kicks changed from being consistent to requiring precision. Of course this is just my opinion and not saying you're wrong in any way.
 

Ffamran

The Smooth Devil Mod
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or HAVE YOU SEEN Ike? It almost feels like half his moveset can string into an UAir KO.
The worst part, at least from what san. san. said and if I recall correctly is that Ike's other moves, namely Dtilt, Utilt, Fair, and Bair, were nerfed or feel undertuned, so Nair doing everything for Ike isn't that great. So, while it's good that he has an amazing Nair, it's also bad that it's basically making up for his other moves or perhaps his entire moveset that should have been good or at least as good as they were in Smash 4. I feel like while it is overtuned, it's not as dumb as Pichu's Ftilt. That dumbass frame 5, 8 active frame, 13 recovery frames move that trips at low percents and kills at high percents is beyond stupid as ****. At least Ivysaur's Dair only lasts 2 frames even if its hitbox is ridiculously large. I'll stick and spam my grossly enlarged foot with a hitbox that lasts forever and you die. I hope they drop the active frames on Pichu's Ftilt. It does not need 8 active frames. Why does it have 8 active frames?

Also, thanks for reminding me that characters like Greninja, Pikachu, and Sheik can drag people around with their Uair or Nair in Pikachu's case while Falco's Nair is like I exist and somehow while having the same autolink angles as Smash 4 Zelda's Nair, has issues connecting people at least when he's rising or falling too fast compared to his opponent. It also annoys me seeing the Nairs of Ivysaur, the Pits, and Piranha Plant connecting well or being improved in this game which I believe happened to the Pits while Falco's isn't as good as it was in 1.0.8 Smash 4.

Anyway, it'd be a pain in the ass for the developers to try and figure out how to do this, but if they could make it so that Dtilt into lightning kicks only worked at a certain, but narrow range, around 10% like I think Inkling's U-throw to Uair confirm on most characters, then that could be fine for those against the idea of Zelda being able to reliably confirm lightning kick because of their fears that it'd be too powerful.

Falling Nair for Zelda I don't think is that much to ask for. Other characters have falling aerial confirms for hits or kills and theirs are just as powerful or even more powerful than Zelda's options. Fox has been doing essentially falling Nair to Up Smash for years and Ken's Nair's autocancel window was improved in 2.0.0 and with the change to Ryu being able to special cancel with aerials in Ultimate and Ken's Nair being a kick instead of a short-ranged punch means Ken's probably going to be doing more stupid stuff with it now. Granted, the difference is that Zelda's Nair could drag people down, but she still needs to be able to hit with it and Zelda's not a fast-moving character on the ground at least and Nair's hitbox isn't that large.
 
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StoicPhantom

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Dec 11, 2018
Messages
618
Bowser, Charizard, Chrom, Cloud, DK, Little Mac, Lucina, Marth, Meta Knight, Mewtwo, Ridley, Roy, and kind of Pichu, Pikachu, the Pits, Sheik, and Yoshi would have been better examples for your fast-moving characters with "wide hitboxes and linear knockback."

Except for Utilt, Up Smash, and Side Smash, all of Fox's attacks are linear and don't cover a lot of range. Part of that is because he's small, he's the same height as (retconned) Little Mac, and the other part is how he fights as an unarmed martial artist using primarily straight-hitting kicks. Some of his moves have high active frames like dash attack, Utilt, Nair, Fair, and Dair, but they're also mainly close his body. Uair is the the most extreme example since Fox does a frontflip facing the screen or the background. Falco actually the does the same move, more noticeable in Brawl and Smash 4, but he faces his opponent, so the hitbox arcs above him rather than hitting only above him. And yet despite the hitbox, Fox players have been able to juggle with Uair very well to the point where Fox's Uair is a staple move. I'd say the main reason for why Fox's Nair doesn't miss much is because it's a static hitbox that has high active frames giving you so much time to hit with it as much as its hitbox is fairly generous like other "sex kick" Nairs. That, and Fox can constantly spam it, so even if he does miss with it, he can try again fairly quickly.

Fox is a high precision character given his hitboxes and that he's a glass cannon who cannot afford to get hit as much as other characters due to his low weight and high fall speed and gravity making it easy to combo him. At the same time, Fox also happens to be a very fast-moving character with fast attacks.
I was using Fox as an easy example, since everyone generally understands how he plays. His kit is designed for speed and is linear, because it would be difficult to handle his level of speed, if you had to worry about varying knockback angles and DI. His moves are precise, which is why he has dash attack, Nair, and Fair to help combo into them. They have generous hitboxs, that pop the opponent up in a certain way, which will lead to juggles with Up-air. Zelda does not have similar moves, and having more speed might be detrimental in that regard, since her moves are precision oriented, without a whole lot to combo into them.

People are already having difficulty landing sweet-spots or properly linking Nair, I felt adding more speed into the mix, would exacerbate that.
I'm not sure what would make her so different from Marth or Roy if she were faster moving. Or Fox, Greninja, Little Mac, Meta Knight, Sheik, and ZSS to name some other characters who move very fast, but also require precision or can be played very precisely. Ignoring Melee Marth and Roy who had their own quirks in that game and Roy not being that fast-moving in Melee, Marth and Roy players constantly have to deal with their sweetspot and sourspot mechanic and in each game, Marth has been moving faster and faster while Roy jumped up from average in Melee to a speed demon in Smash 4. Roy's power lies in hitboxes closest to the Binding Blade's hilt, but Roy also gets a lot from the tipper sourspots. Granted, they use swords, so their moves are safer, but the point still stands where in spite of their movement speed, their players have been able to space and choose their hitboxes.
They have high amounts of mobility, quick frame data, disjoints, and are overall fairly safe on whiff. They can whiff or mess up an input and almost immediately have another buffered. Some of them, have wide and generous hitboxs, helping with properly spacing. The trade off most of them have, is difficulty KOing, whether due to lack of power or KO options being difficult to land. Roy and Marth in particular, are considered vastly inferior to their Echo counterparts, because of the difficulty and risk, in spacing their sweet-spots. They aren't that great in this game overall, compared to similar characters.

Zelda does not have the safety, mobility, or generous hitboxs, they do. Whiffing means a free hit a lot of the time and being floaty and easily comboed, means she will suffer much more. You can buff her mobility, hitboxs, and frame data to compensate, but you will run into the problem of her KO options being stupidly powerful. That will create an imbalance, with her neutral and safety being good and her KO options being much easier to land.

People are also not asking for Zelda to move stupidly fast. If Zelda ran as fast as Sonic, then I could see players having some trouble, but that kind of dumb speed might benefit her more than hurt her. The movement speed buffs people are asking seem more like quality of life requests. For example, the air acceleration thing. Zelda can still move as slow as she wants if the base value isn't changed, but she can also reach her top air speed faster if the max additional value were higher. You get about the same degree of control as you would now, but in times when you want her to move as fast as possible while in the air, she'd be able to do so quicker.
That air speed buff, is perfectly fine and I've always felt it could use a touch up. I just never mentioned it, because it wasn't really a deal breaker at the same time. I was more responding to run speed and ground speed buffs. I don't think she will benefit from any speed buffs too much, with what her kit currently is.



For every argument that Dtilt or NAir leading into her own elevator or kicks and that being bad I just have to say: if Greninja can chain many falling UAirs into almost any move, why is Zelda’s suddenly worse when she’s already overall got worse stats than the frog? If Peach can have a Dtilt that leads into 50% or many characters have Dtilts that lead into potent moves, or HAVE YOU SEEN Ike? It almost feels like half his moveset can string into an UAir KO.
Greninja's opponent kind of needs to be in disadvantage, for that to really work well, Peach is widely complained about and even top players, are bullying Samsora for playing an "easy character", so I don't think that's a particularly good example. Ike, as has already been mentioned, heavily relies on Nair and when Parrying becomes more refined, I expect to see him drop significantly, because that Nair is Parry food. All of those(well don't know about Peach) require the opponent to be at a high percent, to actually kill.

Zelda in contrast, could do it at a low percent and in neutral, which is what makes it a little too strong.
These kinds of things are natural in this game with so many chars, and help strengthen their viability. Zelda had these too, but it feels like both of these move qualities were specifically targeted and snuffed out for Zelda when it c l e a r l y wasn’t because the devs wanted them removed as a design as a whole, just for zelda.
I'm fairly certain nearly all Nair, throw, and Tilt combos, got the same treatment, didn't they? Most of the other Nairs I've used, behaved the same way and a lot of the whining pre-release, was over returning characters not having their combos from 4. I'm fairly certain the goal in Ultimate, was to move away from all of those combos and Ding Dong like things in general. I think the issue was characters that weren't designated combo characters, had all these combos and kill confirms. Smash 4 was basically Down-Throw the game.

If Zelda could Dtilt to LK it would’ve been perfectly fair in her current state, so would falling NAir to elevator. “She was trash then but not now” doesn’t make that a valid reason to remove them when she’s universally agreed to not be close to the top of the chain, and removing them kind of works against the reasoning that she isn’t ‘trash’ now. Honestly I’m kind of appalled that some people can say she could make high tier right now with so many poorly functioning designs. We’re all beating a dead horse with these two moves but Zelda was done dirty, in kind of a way no one else was. It’s just sketchy that some of her competitively viable strategies were cut down to limit her options.
Her not being the best, isn't really a valid reason to keep any overpowered options either. It would only work against that reasoning, if you believed those were her only options. Zelda can potentially KO from anywhere, with almost anything and at lower percents than is the norm, even for heavies. That's why giving her safe setups, into her most powerful KO options, isn't really a good thing balance wise. She would basically become Smash 4 ZSS, without the precision and retaining the ability to KO at high percents easily. I can't think of any character in the game, ZSS included, that could do the same, at the same percents, as safely or easily.
Now,

If it was really intentional design to get rid of these specifically “broken” things on Zelda then we can expect them to never return. At that point it’s time to find other moves that could be tweaked to create solid and new “broken” options. (Broken being used loosely) is personally opt to have a strong Lightning Kick set or generally solid aerials. That has been a long term short coming for her and it wouldn’t be hard to make the moves impressive. Honestly they should do a thing or two that could come off overpowered because if you actually analyze the potential of even a 1F long but large sweetspot on this move it still only just comes to par in usefulness with other powerful side aerials. Ganon BAir says hi.
I find using her current moves, in conjunction with Ultimate's new mechanics and flow, and pairing her Up-B and Fair/Bair, with punishes and reads, works just fine. Rather than tweaking moves, I think it would be more productive to tweak strategies. We can't really affect how characters are going to be changed, so we should just work with what we have. Sakurai seems pretty confident he got it right this time, so I don't think we should be expecting too much in the future.

I think she still has pretty good stuff, like Dair->Up-B at mid percents. That has a sour-spot, so carries risk and wouldn't be broken like comboing from Nair and D-Tilt. I mean, just remember how much whining there was pre-release, that returning characters didn't retain their combos and strategies from 4. Literal Fox, was considered low tier and potentially the worst character in the game, even by Larry Lurr and other Fox mains, simply because Side-B didn't cross people up anymore. People eventually discovered how their characters were supposed to play and devised new strategies and game plans around it. I think we need to do the same, because I highly doubt the old stuff is coming back.

Falling Nair for Zelda I don't think is that much to ask for. Other characters have falling aerial confirms for hits or kills and theirs are just as powerful or even more powerful than Zelda's options.
That being?
Fox has been doing essentially falling Nair to Up Smash for years and Ken's Nair's autocancel window was improved in 2.0.0 and with the change to Ryu being able to special cancel with aerials in Ultimate and Ken's Nair being a kick instead of a short-ranged punch means Ken's probably going to be doing more stupid stuff with it now. Granted, the difference is that Zelda's Nair could drag people down, but she still needs to be able to hit with it and Zelda's not a fast-moving character on the ground at least and Nair's hitbox isn't that large.
Those aren't easy to do, disjointed, and as far as I know, still wouldn't KO as early as Zelda's hypothetical combo. Zelda's drag down Nair, was pretty easy to land and there wasn't much opponents could do to avoid it, given it was from a neutral tool. Zelda's neutral has been buffed, so it will be much easier to land, which is where the unfairness lies, since Zelda isn't as bad as before.

Zelda could literally do all those options with her Melee LKs, they could be spaced, combo into each other, sourspot combos into sweetspot, could be SH AC and did good damage. With Ultimate mechanics these would be a having a sword for a foot. By giving us the AC window Zelda's kicks would make up for not only being the same move, but would further increase her lack of neutral. Possibly even her disadvantage state. The only reason it didn't completely save her was because the Melee engine did her no favors along with having a laughably bad design. I'm no expert, in fact I'm still trying to learn the game, but even I dislike how her kicks changed from being consistent to requiring precision. Of course this is just my opinion and not saying you're wrong in any way.
Sure, but at the same time, Melee was full of broken BS, like a Down-B that could KO at 40, a Dsmash that could do 60, an infinite chain grab, frame 1 Shine spiking, and all sorts of others. I hardly think it would be fair to include something from Melee, where balance was everybody having something unfair by other Smash game standards. You have to understand that having one of the most powerful KO moves in the game, being a single digit frame aerial, is already pretty good. Even equivalent moves like Ganon's Fsmash, forces him to be in place. You can do all sorts of things with Zelda's Fair, that a lot of other similarly powered moves can't. That's why there needs to be that trade off. You can't very well have the usual drawbacks like lots of startup or endlag, on an aerial, not with how they did aerials in this game.
 

Ffamran

The Smooth Devil Mod
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Messages
14,629
His kit is designed for speed and is linear, because it would be difficult to handle his level of speed, if you had to worry about varying knockback angles and DI. His moves are precise, which is why he has dash attack, Nair, and Fair to help combo into them. They have generous hitboxes, that pop the opponent up in a certain way, which will lead to juggles with Up-air. Zelda does not have similar moves, and having more speed might be detrimental in that regard, since her moves are precision oriented, without a whole lot to combo into them.

People are already having difficulty landing sweet-spots or properly linking Nair, I felt adding more speed into the mix, would exacerbate that.
Fox has been getting faster and faster with each game. Most of if not all the cast has been moving faster and faster with each game. Smash 4 Fox's Dtilt had four weird hitboxes where the hit angles where 45 degrees, 65 degrees, 80, and 90. People still figured out how to space his Dtilt to get the most vertical ones and Smash 4 Fox Dtilt probably had the worst range out all the iterations. For one, his tail tip did not have a hitbox despite the attack effect making it look like it did. That's an extreme case, but what sort of "varying knockback angles" does any character have that would be so difficult to deal with if they moved fast? Most moves usually have one hit angle and at most have strong or weak hits through different hitboxes or timing, clean or late hits. Some might have two or three hit angles, but they don't vary so much like Ultimate Fox's Dtilt are all around 73 degrees instead of the wacky hit angles it had in Smash 4. Zelda's in the same spot. She doesn't have to deal with, say, her Ftilt having six different hitboxes where one pops people up, another sends them behind her, another spikes, one does a lot of damage, or one doesn't do a lot of knockback, and so on. Multi-hit moves are where you're likely to see a bunch of weird angles and knockback values for the hits before the final one. Those are there to try and make them function and connect into the final hit.

BJN39 BJN39 , Zelda does not have any weird as hell hitboxes, right?

Fox's dash attack, Nair, and Fair are still using his limbs and he's not tall like Samus nor does his limbs noticeably grow much for those moves. They also hit primarily in one direction: straight in front of him for dash attack and Fair and on him for Nair. They don't arc like Cloud's Fair, they don't cover around him like Zelda's Nair, and they don't hit in one direction and another like Samus's Nair. These moves are also not disjointed. What makes them connect well is their low startup, high active frames, and believe it or not, Fox's high running speed allowing him to get to his opponent and throw out a hitbox. Speed allows him to make contact with otherwise short-ranged moves because he's an unarmed fighter.

Increasing Zelda's running speed would not change how her Nair's connecting. Changing Nair's frame data would change how it connects.

Roy and Marth in particular, are considered vastly inferior to their Echo counterparts, because of the difficulty and risk, in spacing their sweet-spots. They aren't that great in this game overall, compared to similar characters.
Marth is and I'm calling early Smash 4 Marth problems for him where tippers aren't doing enough for the precision required to land them. If you can land them consistently, if you were a robot, then he'd arguably be better than Lucina since tippers are strong. Roy on the other hand is a joke and not in a he's a bad character, but that he and Chrom are like a bad comedy duo. One day it's Roy's better than Chrom, the other it's Chrom's better, Roy's hot garbage on Tuesday, and Chrom's dead which is greatly exaggerated because of the 2.0.0 nerf to his Soaring Slash where suiciding with it causes Chrom to lose his stock first now instead of his opponent. The whole argument boils down to Chrom is consistent, but has a bad recovery and Roy has a better recovery and the ability to combo longer with his sourspots, but he's inconsistent. At least Roy has easier to land and I think stronger sweetspots than Marth. Anyway, this applies to all characters when they can stay on stage, but Chrom is arguably better because of his consistency. The issue is that no character can always be on stage, so Roy isn't that far off.

Peach is widely complained about and even top players, are bullying Samsora for playing an "easy character", so I don't think that's a particularly good example.
People complain about all characters in general. At this point, it's a like a culture of complaining and whining about things in any competitive game. So, it's not just a Daisy, Peach, Fox, Ike, Inkling, Pichu, Snake, Wario, Wolf, and so on thing, but a sad reality. I also can't see Daisy and Peach being called easy characters when you have to deal with being able to use their float well. They, along with Ken and Ryu, are very technical characters.

Ike, as has already been mentioned, heavily relies on Nair and when Parrying becomes more refined, I expect to see him drop significantly, because that Nair is Parry food.
That Ike was played by one of the best Smash 4 players and arguably one of the best Ultimate players as of now. Other Ike players didn't make it as far as MkLeo did at Genesis 6.

Zelda in contrast, could do it at a low percent and in neutral, which is what makes it a little too strong.
BJN39 BJN39 , confirm or deny, but Zelda is not going to be killing people at like 20% because she'd be able to confirm lightning kicks and Farore's Wind, right? Those moves kill at like 80 to 90% give or take depending on the character's weight and where on the stage she is on.

That being?
Captain Falcon has falling to only hit with the first hit of Nair to his Fair which is roughly as strong as Zelda's lightning kicks. At least it was in Smash 4. It can also lead to Dair and Falcon Dive. The main thing about him is that he can chain Nair and Uair at a certain range of percents, so he can carry you closer towards the blast zone. It requires that Waft to be charged, but Wario has Nair to Waft. I can't remember if it was Chrom or Roy, but one of them had the ability to do Nair confirms into Ftilt and Side Smash. It's probably both of them with Chrom probably being able to get Soaring Slash as well which at the ledge is probably going to kill most characters.

Those are situational, but they're about as powerful. Zelda having more reliable ones would just be that: reliable and powerful kill confirms. She still needs to land them, however, like everyone else with a kill confirm. In other words, she needs to get to that point somehow and she has as much of her answers as she does questions for getting to that point. In Smash 4, Cloud, Meta Knight, Ryu, ZSS, and arguably Bayonetta were not freely getting kills even if some of them were able to kill very, very early even compared to in Ultimate. They still had to work their way there regardless of how easy or difficult it was for them to do so. And I'm banking on no, Zelda won't have a super easy time getting there if she had Dtilt to lightning kicks or falling Nair to lightning kicks or Farore's Wind because, for one exaggerated reason, Zelda's not a super broken character who can ignore shields, grab you from across a stage, can cancel any of her moves into whatever she wants, walk on air, or whatever ridiculous reason I can't come up with at 3:31 in the morning. Why am I typing this up at 3:31 in the morning? She's still a reasonable character among other reasonable characters because the developers did not repeat making 64, Melee, or Brawl.

Those aren't easy to do, disjointed, and as far as I know, still wouldn't KO as early as Zelda's hypothetical combo. Zelda's drag down Nair, was pretty easy to land and there wasn't much opponents could do to avoid it, given it was from a neutral tool. Zelda's neutral has been buffed, so it will be much easier to land, which is where the unfairness lies, since Zelda isn't as bad as before.
There's a reason why Larry Lurr joked about Fox's Nair during a recent tournament. Fox's Nair does a lot for him and when it comes to killing, all he needs to do is land it and run up and Up Smash. If the opponent is able to tech when landing from being hit by Nair, then it'll be up to the Fox player's reaction and awareness. Otherwise, Fox is fast enough to catch up to his opponent and it's not that difficult when you just need to Up Smash. There's also another reason why people complain about Ike's Nair which leads to his Uair, Fair, and Bair and they all hit hard. It does not help that Ike's Nair has a hit angle of 80 degrees, so it will pop up his opponent making it easier for his Uair to kill.

I'm not seeing what's so easy about Zelda's falling Nair as a hit and kill confirm that others are more difficult to do or whatever. You're hitting with a move to confirm into another. Even if you're playing Ken or Ryu where you have to do the inputs for Shoryuken, it's still the same thing. Fox uses Nair as a neutral tool and getting hit by Nair to Up Smash at kill percents isn't something you can avoid easily. Same deal with Ike where his Nair covers a lot of space around him. There's also item confirms from Daisy, Peach, Toon Link, and young Link. The kid Links throw a bomb at their opponent in the air, if the opponent gets hit, they can get a Fair off of it. If the opponent doesn't, then they can avoid them or go for another option.

Literal Fox, was considered low tier and potentially the worst character in the game, even by Larry Lurr and other Fox mains, simply because Side-B didn't cross people up anymore.
More than that and part of me feel likes it's a running gag with Fox rather than something serious. Smash 4 Fox was written off as bad too until he started to dominate. I would not surprised if it happened again with Smash 6 and with any character. Everywhere you go, there's someone saying their main got nerfed around the launch of a new Smash game.

Ultimate Fox's Utilt was changed from Smash 4 and something about it made it so it wasn't as easy to chain them at low percents at least from early impressions, they didn't like that fast fall Fair could be used to semi-spike as easily as it could in Smash 4, Side Smash doesn't travel as far as it did in the previous games, and Fox lost some weight. Otherwise, Fox is shaping up to be about the same as he was in Smash 4 which for Fox players is a huge advantage since they can do pretty much the same thing they did in Smash 4 and get similar results.

It's almost 4:00 in the morning. I am ending this post and I am going to sleep. I will not respond to any replies if there are any. What have I gotten myself into?
 
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BJN39

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Ffamran Ffamran as far as weird hitbox go for Zelda...maybe? Are you referring to the concept of one move with a bunch of different potential damage/angle outcomes or just odd range/position? Zelda’s Dsmash has a non-20 degree angle hitbox that is designed with lower hit priority so it almost never hits. Ftilt only has 2 power levels so it’s pretty plain, hmm, nah. Zelda’s hitboxes are not weird, just small.


I had more I would’ve said, but when I realized it was becoming so ridiculously long, and I knew it could not possibly end there, I decided to delete it. I don’t feel the need to justify Zelda’s strong need for at least the bare minimum of improvements when I know you Stoic simply don’t agree. That’s fine tbh, but I don’t think there’s going to be anything to gleam that I dobt already understand from stringning out giant paragraphs about Zelda’s Meta.

I will say that this time around people are being rather... lenient on letting zelda’s largely disfunctiobal designs pass through for whatever reason while acting like they know the character in and out only 2 months in. I think “gameplan tweaking” is a respectable strategy at this time in the game’s span, however. While Phanton alone a viable character it will not make, it will require more time to understand how it affects her viability. Knowing her previous kit well and seeing mostly unaltered moveset uses, though, I can see that her pool of options has only been limited in the transition to ultimate. Phantom alone is not a fix or a replacement for other nerfs or lacking improvements, it’s time that’ll tell where it offsets the problems with her kit. I’ll continue to make sure people are seeing both sides of Zelda while we get there.
 
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san.

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It's not all positive for Ike, as you can see if you read through his thread. A lot of Ike's moves were made more specialized with a lot of nerfs to fair in particular (it doesn't kill at center stage at 160%, weaker than Lucina fair, etc), and a few other key moves like less range on his dtilt and bair, two heavily-used moves in smash 4 that are only 'good' now. This leaves nair and sometimes bair for spacing (since it doesn't hit short characters easily anymore), and fair only if you feel like it.

That being said, Ike's nair is one of the slowest and least damaging in the game, starting at frame 10, hitting in front of him around frame 12-13, and dealing 7 damage. I think being a great combo tool makes sense, and quite a few other characters have better nairs that easily do 1.5-2x damage with just the nair alone. Ike's nair is around the top 3-5 area in overall utility.
 

Ffamran

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Ffamran Ffamran as far as weird hitbox go for Zelda...maybe? Are you referring to the concept of one move with a bunch of different potential damage/angle outcomes or just odd range/position? Zelda’s Dsmash has a non-20 degree angle hitbox that is designed with lower hit priority so it almost never hits. Ftilt only has 2 power levels so it’s pretty plain, hmm, nah. Zelda’s hitboxes are not weird, just small.
Only to clarify, but the former of one move with a bunch of different potential damage/knockback/angle outcomes like Fox's Dtilt in Smash 4. Or something like Falco's Down Smash where there's one pair of hitboxes that have drastically different hit angles, 80 degrees, compared to the 25 degree hit angle ones you're usually going to hit with.
 

Codebox

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Ffamran Ffamran as far as weird hitbox go for Zelda...maybe? Are you referring to the concept of one move with a bunch of different potential damage/angle outcomes or just odd range/position? Zelda’s Dsmash has a non-20 degree angle hitbox that is designed with lower hit priority so it almost never hits. Ftilt only has 2 power levels so it’s pretty plain, hmm, nah. Zelda’s hitboxes are not weird, just small.


I had more I would’ve said, but when I realized it was becoming so ridiculously long, and I knew it could not possibly end there, I decided to delete it. I don’t feel the need to justify Zelda’s strong need for at least the bare minimum of improvements when I know you Stoic simply don’t agree. That’s fine tbh, but I don’t think there’s going to be anything to gleam that I dobt already understand from stringning out giant paragraphs about Zelda’s Meta.

I will say that this time around people are being rather... lenient on letting zelda’s largely disfunctiobal designs pass through for whatever reason while acting like they know the character in and out only 2 months in. I think “gameplan tweaking” is a respectable strategy at this time in the game’s span, however. While Phanton alone a viable character it will not make, it will require more time to understand how it affects her viability. Knowing her previous kit well and seeing mostly unaltered moveset uses, though, I can see that her pool of options has only been limited in the transition to ultimate. Phantom alone is not a fix or a replacement for other nerfs or lacking improvements, it’s time that’ll tell where it offsets the problems with her kit. I’ll continue to make sure people are seeing both sides of Zelda while we get there.
I think that's why there's an overall disconnect when it comes to people's leniency on Zelda's Ultimate design. They see the surface level buffs, which while improvement feel like first draft buffs (Oh Zelda can't Dins Free Fall? Just fix that, Phantom needs to give you more breathing room, okay do that) it's more of fixing what should've already been fixed ages ago, but she's still at square one.. Don't get me wrong I see more potential in this Zelda and I stand by it's the best one so far, but there needs to be more, but I think the real buffs would come from understanding the playstyle. It's actually weird how just a few design tweaks would solidify her viability (i.e. run speed, AC Two SH Kicks, D-tilt, Nair, faster grab even adjusting cooldown and start period for Dins) I'd do anything to have a foot sword again. lol
 

Dcas

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I mean, look at Ike, Ike hits way harder, nair leads to everything, has a decent/good recovery, has more weight, absurd hitboxes, runs faster, etc.

See where i am going?

Zelda has some decent hitboxes sure but never comparable to Ike or a swordie, zelda has some proyectiles but never comparable to those of olimar/samus/ wolf, zelda has "below average/just ok normals" but nothing like wolf or bjr jab. Thats the problem her kit is below averaage and she doesnt excelt at anything, everyone in the cast can do what zelda does but better and thats my main problem.

Trust me i do like her kit but she need some buffs asap, the movement speed buff would do wonders so you can get to punish stuff, there has been a multitude of cases when just arriving far/DIng away from zelda will get you out of pressure and zelda has no answer. Some of her moves are laggy without a reason like nair and her tilts, if zelda is that laggy then give her some nice range or absurd KO power such as UAIR.

Also her movement speed buff would work great since for some reason, she should be playing in the ground with some juggling. Her disadvantage stage must be top 10 worst in the game, being floaty and so light its horrendous.

And still besides alll those flaws, zelda does very good vs zoners and has a great MU vs Olimar particularly. But she loses to all disjoints, rushdown characters wich are the high and top tiers.
 

Brinzy

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Up your Parry game. Parrys and strong shield games in general, can shut down sword characters. There can still be problem ones, like Pit and Marth/Lucina, but overall those long lasting moves, can be a detriment in that regard.
Will do on the parrying. But my point is Zelda is so slow that you generally don't need to parry her attacks to punish her hard. Of course you don't want to parry her multi-hit attacks, but to my understanding, she doesn't have anything that has a very tight window for punishing like a lot of characters do.

But again, it's possible I am just bad.
I don't know if it is true exactly, but I've done it around 40 or so, multiple times.
Is it DI dependent? Because I've only sweetspotted very large characters. Never lighter ones. Do they have to be very close to you? I truthfully hardly use the move, because it feels like elevator, Dsmash, grab, etc. are just all better and more reliable. But, if there's an easy way to LK, let me know.

And as for the stuff about the kicks... I mean, that's how they worked in Sm4sh. That's how they've always worked. With the exception of Melee, they've been weaker parts of her kit. You use them because she doesn't have any other options besides like nair. Yeah, they can kill super early, but they're also largely the reason why she can fall behind in most matches. If you take away d-throw -> kick combos at low %s, it's not very uncommon to see Zelda go entire matches landing 3 or fewer kicks, and that's simply not the way good aerials work. I've watched other Zeldas play, and sometimes I'll watch an entire match where they don't get a kick.

They're great OoS and have low startup, yeah. They're still not good aerials. It's her signature move. I really don't think allowing you to auto-cancel them is the worst idea ever when she's already not combo-oriented.

The character is probably the best she's ever been. She's still not really good.
 
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