Are Zelda's Lightning Kicks really bad? Been hearing they're bad. At the very least they seem to hit more consistently than Brawl and Smash 4. I can actually score KOs with them. You've just proven how deadly they are. Nice videos you have out, keep them coming!
Her kicks are good, but not good enough for the drawbacks they have.
1) She has 2 of the same aerial moves, meaning she can't do a wall of Bairs/Fairs as an approach. Same move, same usage, the move better be damn good... It's OK enough at least. Good enough to be scary for opponents. But not too scary since she's a slow glass cannon with an awkward moveset for that type of character. It looks like the kick was made to "defuse" a combo situation or get a good hit in, but the range is just too bad and she doesn't have enough intangible parts to even keep her safe. Her entire kit results in her getting hits but being hit simultaneously. It's really bad.
2) Can't be used for an approach because they aren't safe enough on shield or if they hit the sourspot. Compared to other tipper type sourspots, her sourspot is straight up useless except for cute little combo memes that aren't reliable enough to count on. But they are there. So she gets half a point for them at least.
3) The range is pathetic and so is the angle it covers. Other Fairs cover directly in front of them or even over them to below them (see Marth). Hers covers a forward and downard angle, which is useful and is something most Bairs can do and relieving pressure if it somehow hits the target. Except she has 2 of the same move. So see #1.
4) High risk, high reward, and she's a slow glass cannon. Other characters have less risk/the same reward and are faster. Usually with more range and more options. They can also use a low-reward hit
(sourspot, knicked, etc) to go into a combo or retreat. Her low-reward is her getting ezpummeled. She either gets an A+ or she fails, nothing in between.
5) Her kicks are extremely powerful despite the above. However, they favor hitting people who are at a lower or equal angle to her... All of her moves fling people upwards and diagonally. Oops. If they don't kill the person, they knock them far and high enough for them to safely recover high too. Double oops.
6) Super duper fun fact! All powerful hit-lightning moves have a cute little freeze frame effect for dramatic and unnecessary effect. You know. So you can have time to properly DI her already easy to survive KB - how wonderful and useful for a character who is slow and has diagonal/easy to work with KB!
So Zelda is good. But her entire kit is flawed because of how limited it is in range of versatility. She is best played like a fast combo character, except her
"can kill you threshold" is 35%-75%. After that she has to really work for it by racking up excess damage so the KB can finally kick in OR get a good hard read in. That's why she'll never be high tier or even high-mid without some meaningful changes. On the flip side, if the changes are too good she'll essentially become another Sm4sh Bayonetta/Inkling 1.0 because her kit is so ****ing weird that basic how-to-spam-to-live knowledge doesn't work vs her.
TL;DR she a'ight. She ain't good. Anything powerful can be DI'd due to how much leeway the game gives her opponents and the lack of decent kill combos vs non-heavies. But she's viable. Her weird AF kit disallows basic tactics that work vs most of the other cast to work vs her. If someone knows the MU, she ain't winning easily. If they kinda know the MU then most of her "surprise2win" things are gambles. If they think she's just another character, Zelda gets an ez win (which is why she's da kween vs most of the Smash Elite Spam crowd).
