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

[Rickster]

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time to recklessly usmash him

 

[StoicPhantom]

Thinking a little more, Fsmash rather than Nair might be the one that needs to link better and what this patch should have fixed. Small characters seem to fall out of it fairly easy, I think possibly due to the transcendent nature. I feel like Ven would have won against Captain L at SNS, if that didn't happen several times. Unlike Nair, you can't use DI to correct and that is our only real safe and quick kill option, that doesn't require precision. I guess I'm not sure it's a multi-hit issue, maybe needs more hit stun, but I don't think it was intended.

Playing some more MUs, I think most of the MUs haven't changed significantly with the buffs. I'm not sure about Ken, as I've heard all this hype about combos I don't see any using yet, but other than Lucario and Bayo, whom I haven't played, neutral remains the same and any fundamental issues are also present.

 

[Lacrimosa]

Good to know I'M not the only one that thinks fSmash is the worst offender and not her nair (Mystearica says nAir works fine, you just have to follow the opponent). Nair still achieves what it should when it hits even when the opponent falls out of it eventually. But I like to see it getting improved nonetheless :3.

But her fSmash is weird. It's ok that it trades, other smash attacks to that as well. But what is not ok is the fact then the opponent can fall out of it. If you get by a more ciommittal move like a smash attack then you should be punished accordingly. Sometimes you hit the opponent but instead of getting all hits, the opponent falls out and lands behind you. Since you're still in endlag of fSmash, you get fSmashed or receive another strong attack (Fox' uSmash for example). The move also worked like that in Sm4sh where it annoyed me as well but since I play the game more often now, I notice this flaw even more, unintended or not.

 

[StoicPhantom]

You can work around that issue, by timing Fsmash so that only the last hit connects, thereby avoiding trades or the opponent falling out, but that's difficult to do in some scenarios. I feel like Zelda's transcendent hitboxs are the most underrated thing about her, but I don't know that they're good as multi-hits. Jab works better, but even that can be a little wonky at times. Like I've been labbing Jab 1 -> Fair and it will confirm at 120-140...except on middle weights and small characters, because it draws them into Zelda, instead of knocking them back. I don't know why that weight specifically is so different than the others, but it just goes to show how random Jab can be.

Also, I did play some Ken and Ryu players, who knew the new combos. I can confirm they're bonkers, and I think the MU is now even, instead of in Zelda's favor. Previously, Zelda could punish them hard, but they couldn't do the same. Now Zelda can potentially die at 80. It will ultimately come down to a couple wins in neutral. It's a very stressful MU now. Diddy's buffs feel underwhelming in comparison, although he can kill now.

 

[Ysor]

Guys I got an idea. Lets start losing in quickplay. If losing 5.06mil gsp gets zelda buffed so be it.

 

[Lacrimosa]

Ok, I think nair is considered a bad move.
And by that, I want to talk about the framedata on that thing.
Frame 6 start-up is ok. Nothing to great or bad.
But this thing has 15(!) frames of endlag. That worse than all heavies (except Bowserwhose nAir has much more utility currently and has less lag when you don't touch the ground with it).
Like, the opponent is prone to fall out and it has horrendous landing lag. On top of that, bAir/fAir have the same ending lag and less lag midair.

I don't know why they butchered that move so much. At least make it work properly when you give it that much lag :/.

 

[daddypeach]

I honestly get so much utility out of nair that I can't call it bad. It has a long hitbox and has really good tech chase potential on the ledges. It completes before a full hop ends and it's not too much longer than her second jump. It's not a bad edge-guarding tool because it lasts so long and she can execute one on the way done and one on the way up. Covers a lot of options and the fall-out issue is not a big problem in that situation. I agree it should have less end lag though. I don't see giving it more drag-down potential breaking her as a character, since plenty of nairs do the same for higher tiers characters. It is really annoying that her least laggy move is dair. It's really difficult to approach without phantom.

I think there is something to the argument about not making Zelda broken for online play. I worry that Zelda is not strongly considered as a tournament viable character and it's by design. Her approaches are very linear except for Nair. How do you improve her without just making her OP online?

 

[Rickster]

I'm honestly kinda torn on Nair too. If you ignore the falling out part, the hitbox is probably the biggest it's ever been before. So it helps us beat out *some* shorter ranged character's aerial approaches. Nair 1 is also really good for combos and such (I've talked this to death before so that's all I'll say for now). The final hitbox is large enough to clip platforms which catches a lot of people off guard since it hits so far away from her arm. It also does a pretty high amount of damage for a single move.

But on the other hand the inconsistency with the multihits is pretty bad. And the lag is high for a move of its type. I'll accept the lag since Zelda has always been designed to have poor autocancel and landing lag values, but the move failing is really holding it back.

Lately I've been trying to use the failing multihits as a tool to drag them into a phantom. Gotta work with what we have lmao

 

[Lacrimosa]

At least we know that Zelda got indirectly buffed with the time limit on the FS meter because you can literally use hers whenever you want.

 

[BJN39]

So with 4.0.0 allegedly coming out tonight (!) I've collected ALL of Zelda's changelists and finally added them to the OP! Now you can view ALL of those NUMEROUS changes she's gotten since alpha!!!1!!

 

[Ysor]

No listed changes. But they buffed mewtwo.

 

[Codebox]

At this rate buffing her with Melee Farore's and calling it a day would suffice. Seems like we're having a Smash 4 Jigglypuff on our hands. *sigh*

 

[daddypeach]

Zelda doesn't need to have lag on her buffered fair and bair. She should be able to execute two bairs in a single shorthop, just like in brawl. And her brawl upsmash should come back. And tilting with her should be easier. >=o And she should have a better walk-speed. And she should have a version of herself where she can transform into Sheik instead of use phantom. *SD's off battlefield*

 

[Downshift]

And she should have a version of herself where she can transform into Sheik instead of use phantom.

This.

 

[stingywizard]

Seems like in order to be a competitively viable character you need some moves with very low lag (starting or ending): Joker, Snake (grenades), Pichu, Peach, Pikachu, Lucina, Wolf, Palu. Zelda has, let's just call it generous amounts of lag.

The trade-off seems to be that if you have lag you can survive a long time (heavy) and kill easily. Intuitively this does not sound like Zelda - she feels light, and killing is difficult because she is slow and her best kill options require small sweetspots, hard to hit against the best fast-moving, small-hurtbox characters.

They cannot possible think that Joker is balance while also thinking Zelda is balance. I am fine with Joker being powerful - I want to play a powerful game - I would just argue that Zelda (and others frankly) do not compare and need significant buffs in order to do so.

Consider:

Zelda is lighter than Joker (lighter than Peach even).
She's slower than Joker (run, walk, air, fall, fast fall).
She cannot wall jump while he can.
His multi-hit up-air drag down confirms into smashes, hers does not confirm in to anything.
His grabs are must faster on start up and have less end lag.
His counter starts on frame 3, her's on 11, though hers only lasts a max of 22 frames and his last over 2 seconds. He can act faster out of his counter than she hers.
Eiha comes out on f16, deals 13.2 damage. Din's fire comes out on frame 44 and deals 4.2 or 8.4 if you sweet-spot it.


So she is lighter, and slower, and weaker. Something needs to change.

 

[Lacrimosa]

(Since I think the next patch is right around the corner)
So, I think the buff-wishlist pretty much stays the same but given 4.0 buffed some characters, did some other problems emerge that the devs should address for her? It's probably still: Fix nAir, dtilt and fSmash and add a mobility buff.

 

[Xellros]

Woot, this thread can finally be updated with something worth while.

 

[BJN39]

Dead.

but I can actually do that, you’re right!

thanks to Reuben, who has provided a free-access database for ulti, I can even put the data-specific changes to Zelda from 7.0. Expect updates soon~