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A couple days ago I said that Zelda's jump is frame 4 as of the E3 build. I'm wrong. You're not supposed to count the first airborne frame according to the previous Smash games', KoF XIII, KoF XIV, Street Fighter V, and probably every other fighting game out there. I went checked those games with their frame data since I felt like I made a mistake with everyone else saying Link, Ridley, and everyone else have 3 frame jumps. In other words, Zelda's jump is 3 frames and she's airborne on the fourth frame.
Also, when did this thread become the Zelda social?
A couple days ago I said that Zelda's jump is frame 4 as of the E3 build. I'm wrong. You're not supposed to count the first airborne frame according to the previous Smash games', KoF XIII, KoF XIV, Street Fighter V, and probably every other fighting game out there. I went checked those games with their frame data since I felt like I made a mistake with everyone else saying Link, Ridley, and everyone else have 3 frame jumps. In other words, Zelda's jump is 3 frames and she's airborne on the fourth frame.
That said if true, Zelda's jumpsquat is...impressive to say that least (Tied with SSB4's what? Fox and Sheik? In other words the fastest stuff) I heard that this change might be somewhat universal? As in, all chars are going to have quick jumpsquat? Either way I can't be mad if it helps Zelda!
Also, when did this thread become the Zelda social?
That said if true, Zelda's jumpsquat is...impressive to say that least (Tied with SSB4's what? Fox and Sheik? In other words the fastest stuff) I heard that this change might be somewhat universal? As in, all chars are going to have quick jumpsquat? Either way I can't be mad if it helps Zelda!
I was thinking of it as being like a regular move where you considered the first active frame as part of its startup like Fox's jab 1 being frame 2. If you didn't, then it would be frame 1 and that wouldn't make sense since Little Mac's jab 1 is frame 1 so what would that make it. Apparently people don't do that for jumps. Oh well.
It's the first public demo build, but it looks like they want everyone to have a universal jump frame. I think it's appropriate for a platform fighting game where movement is flexible and should feel flexible or at least heavy characters or characters with slower jumps shouldn't feel that clunky and sluggish, but it's going to have heavy consequences. Case in point: Ganondorf and Ike, especially Ike who has Ragnell and people have checked and except for Bair and I think Dair, had 1 to 2 less startup on his aerials and reduced landing lag. Ganondorf's landing lag for Fair looks stupid. I thought that if they were to reduce the gap in jump frames, it would have been something like 4 frames is the common one and 5 frames is for heavies. Nope, they went beyond that and decided to go with 3 frames which we haven't had since 64 and Melee as Brawl upped the floor to 4 frames.
Zelda having a 3 frame jump gives her the same jump speed as 64 Fox, Kirby, Luigi, Mario, Ness, Pikachu, and Samus and Melee Fox, the Ice Climbers, Kirby, Pichu, Pikachu, Samus, and Sheik. It's also half her jump frames since Melee as Zelda always had a 6 frame jump until now or until the final build reveals to us Zelda's new frame 10 jump.
It kind of makes since now why people seemed to be accidentally doing jump FWs now instead of grounded elevators because they were having trouble inputting the up B in such a short window.
...Which means that now elevator is gonna be like, 50% tighter an input window....
Fine, I'll talk about Falco's fat, flappy fingers like I usually do. They're so dumb looking!
Anyway, the universal jump thing reminded me of Zelda's frame 10 standing grab made me wonder about grab startup and frame data in general. Grabs vary in frame data from character to character and I'm at a point where I feel like they should be made universal like frame 6 or 7 for melee grabs, 9 or 10 for longer-ranged ones, and 12 for tether grabs. There's also the issue of characters having different recovery on their grabs like Samus and ZSS's pivot grab recovery was awful compared to the other tether grabbers. Samus has 56 recovery and ZSS has 55 recovery for their pivot grabs and around the 45 recovery for their standing and dash grabs which Link has for all his grabs and Toon Link for his standing grab, 44 recovery, while his dash and pivot grabs are 52 and 51 recovery, respectively. Or hitbox issues like Pac-Man's grab is a thing and appears to at least look like a thing. Well, whatever.
Never thought a day would come where zelda would have to worry about being too fast for inputs. It looks like they tried to make all characters have universal frame data on some stuff this time. Like all characters have an auto cancel arial from what I've seen. Slow characters move faster while faster characters move at the same speed they did in smash 4. It's an attempt to even the playing field I think. There are still differences in move strength and reaches, but frame data seems to be a lot closer for all the characters now. No more frame 50+ bs for zelda.
This makes me wonder what would happen if Phantom Breaker were to return; the Phantom's attacks would deal less damage than normal, in favor of increased shield damage. The full charge would deal enough shield damage to shatter a full shield.
Omg Zelda got new buffs and all of a sudden she's feeling herself snapping for her phantom...sis really snapped!!!!! Smash Ultimate Zelda the true gay icon we needed
I got kinda confused watching this myself with all the moves that are going on LOL....imagine what you could do to opponents with all the mindgames and trickery!!! I'm really excited for SSBU Zelda because it seems like at the LEAST if she's not good she'll definitely be the best version of herself she's ever been
Omg Zelda got new buffs and all of a sudden she's feeling herself snapping for her phantom...sis really snapped!!!!! Smash Ultimate Zelda the true gay icon we needed
I got kinda confused watching this myself with all the moves that are going on LOL....imagine what you could do to opponents with all the mindgames and trickery!!! I'm really excited for SSBU Zelda because it seems like at the LEAST if she's not good she'll definitely be the best version of herself she's ever been
I was waiting for something like this to show up. It’s just insane. Mixup shield, grab, and run away after phantom is charged, not to mention you can always release it early as a mix up, too.
Notice also how Zelda can block FOR the phantom if they try to destroy it through you. The fact they put it BEHIND her has so many new implications
This makes me wonder what would happen if Phantom Breaker were to return; the Phantom's attacks would deal less damage than normal, in favor of increased shield damage. The full charge would deal enough shield damage to shatter a full shield.
Maybe it already does, or one of the five different strikes (sixth charge is the same move as the last charge) breaks shields specifically. Hell, it’s a heavy weight demon possessed armor, I hope to god it breaks shields
Maybe it already does, or one of the five different strikes (sixth charge is the same move as the last charge) breaks shields specifically. Hell, it’s a heavy weight demon possessed armor, I hope to god it breaks shields
If I remember my Smash Wii U knowledge, Phantom Slash never dealt enough damage to break shields; all charge levels never had any kind of shield damage bonus.
Phantom Breaker is the only Phantom Slash variant that offers a shield damage bonus, and is capable of shattering full shields, but only if the full charge's two hits connected. The only downside with Phantom Breaker was that the Phantom always traveled a set distance, and dealt less damage than the default Phantom Slash.
If I remember my Smash Wii U knowledge, Phantom Slash never dealt enough damage to break shields; all charge levels never had any kind of shield damage bonus.
Phantom Breaker is the only Phantom Slash variant that offers a shield damage bonus, and is capable of shattering full shields, but only if the full charge's two hits connected. The only downside with Phantom Breaker was that the Phantom always traveled a set distance, and dealt less damage than the default Phantom Slash.
I wasn’t talking about in Smash 4. They have changed how the move works since then, so it could potentially break shields or have large shield stun. They might have removed the two hit slash so it couldn’t be parried with power shield and then they destroy it for free, idk
I know, but I'm just trying to say that the Phantom in Smash Ultimate might lack the ability to break full shields, even at full charge. If a fully charged Phantom Slash can't break full shields, then you might have trouble delivering shield pressure with the weaker charge levels.
Phantom Breaker has demonstrated its ability to deal greater shield pressure. So assuming that custom specials do happen to come back, a fully charged Phantom Breaker could easily shatter full shields, but the main drawback would be that the base damage would be weaker than normal; this would consequently make it less efficient as a KO move option.
I know, but I'm just trying to say that the Phantom in Smash Ultimate might lack the ability to break full shields, even at full charge. If a fully charged Phantom Slash can't break full shields, then you might have trouble delivering shield pressure with the weaker charge levels.
Phantom Breaker has demonstrated its ability to deal greater shield pressure. So assuming that custom specials do happen to come back, a fully charged Phantom Breaker could easily shatter full shields, but the main drawback would be that the base damage would be weaker than normal; this would consequently make it less efficient as a KO move option.
I don't think customs will be coming back. Palutena has already had her moves streamlined not to mention the HUGE undertaking it would be to create customs for 64+ characters on release.
It's probably just fully charged phantom and mixups for us. The full charge phantom's pressure does remind me of Lloid rocket pressure so the shield break might not be necessary.
With dins specifically all I want now is for it to detonate faster (frames 5-6 maybe?) and for people not being able to punch it like a friendship empowered anime protagonist.
I'm still freaking out about no free fall on Din's Fire. I feel like that's kinda sad that I'd be so happy about that considering it never should've been a thing in the first place, and it definitely needs more buffs, but one step at a time I guess.
I don't think customs will be coming back. Palutena has already had her moves streamlined not to mention the HUGE undertaking it would be to create customs for 64+ characters on release.
It's probably just fully charged phantom and mixups for us. The full charge phantom's pressure does remind me of Lloid rocket pressure so the shield break might not be necessary.
The Ultimate Falco boards is dead, but that's to be expected -- game's not out, he was not playable in the demo, and the Smash 4 Falco boards were always quiet as far as I'm aware of -- and this is sort of related to Ultimate Zelda.
I think I said it before in this thread, but I am concerned Falco's lack of presence in the demo or gameplay footage that's more than he shoots, he reflects, he jumps, and he dies off-screen. It's very early and the game was just announced a few days ago, but it's been bugging me, especially as someone who dug into Falco's frame data and saw all the weird and dumb crap he's carried over or ended up having in the three Smashes he's been in.
Of the characters that I would have expected or rather, wanted to have been showcased in a demo of Ultimate, the succeeding game to Smash 4, Falco, Zelda, and maybe Palutena would have topped my list. The guest characters and new or holy crap characters like the Inklings, Ridley, and Snake definitely should have and were showcased along with the more notable veterans of Smash like almost everyone from 64 basically. Wolf would have been neat too, but he really feels like he's an in-progress character considering it seems like they're rebuilding him, giving him new and updated animations, and animations that separate him from Fox and Falco who are also getting changes to make them more distinct. That said, Wolf didn't have any real problems other than a nonexistent fast-fall speed in Brawl. He started out with a good foundation and only missed being in Smash 4. Other characters, for example, Dr. Mario, Duck Hunt, Robin, and Wii Fit Trainer, I feel like only really need number changes to make them feel stronger, more cohesive, or whatever by the final game. Still, it would have been nice to have seen them in action and to see some of their changes.
Starting with Palutena, what makes her different is that while number changes would be enough, it would be easier to tell considering some of her moves, namely her tilts, are very slow. It wouldn't be like looking at Ike and saying his Nair is a frame or two faster. You can look at her trailer for Ultimate and tell her Utilt and Ftilt are faster than in Smash 4. Even if it's two or three frames, it's probably more noticeable when her tilts are as fast as other characters Smashes with Utilt being the fastest at frame 10, but that adds up when Ftilt is 17 and Dtilt is 14. The other thing is that they specifically mentioned her having reworked default Specials. She was supposed to be the character who showed off customs in Smash 4, but I think going for two sets of customs was way too much to develop. Maybe one set of customs for everyone, but not two or even three like what they apparently planned and was datamined early on. In other words, she's someone who should have been a demo character or should be one in the future assuming they do more invitationals and have different batches of character or rotations of characters. Considering her rework in Special, she might be in a similar situation to Wolf and that's fine since other than weirdly slow tilts, Palutena doesn't really have a lot of issues unlike Falco and Zelda.
Zelda is a character. She exists, she is one of the six representatives of The Legend of Zelda, and she functioned is the most I can say about her and to my limited knowledge about her. Now, she's more than functioning and they definitely made a point to show everyone that. Some of which people had to find or had to be shown later like Din's Fire not putting her into freefall when there wasn't much of a reason for it too or the capabilities of the new and improved Phantom Slash, but it looks like the developers are addressing her issues and making an attempt to make her stronger or put her on more even footing with everyone else. She looks less clunky and sluggish and more fluid and faster; she looks like she's benefiting from universal changes like a faster, universal jump or ability to use any move out of her dash which might be faster; her Specials, or at least Din's Fire and Phantom Slash, look like they have a more functioning purpose, and some of the weird things she had like a frame 11 jab no longer exists and we can see that. The players can see what happened to Zelda and what she might be like in a new Smash game. I said it before, but I'm glad and excited that Zelda was playable for the demo and that she looks like a really fun character to play. Still not a fan of her having the same Fair and Bair essentially, but that's just me.
Compared to Zelda, Falco's situation is less of a functioning problem and more of a how the hell did any of this make it pass Q&A and what even was the intent behind these decisions? Zelda's moveset as awkward as was in the previous games and maybe in this one too, at least has intent even if they were executed badly like Phantom Slash in Smash 4 or Transform in the Melee and Brawl basically being turn Zelda into an actual character. She also had some weird things like Din's Fire mentioned above, but nothing compares to, in my biased opinion, Falco's bull****.
Rapid jab in Smash 4
Highest SDI at x1.2 over Greninja's x1.1 and the second lowest damage per hit 0.4% over Bayonetta's 0.3%
Characters with fast moves, invincibility, or super-armor like Luigi's Nair, Marth's Dolphin Slash, etc., can interrupt it
Rapid jab finisher moves Falco forward and at the ledge, can allow him to cancel it, drop down the ledge, and continue with a low Nair or Fair because of course it can
If I recall correctly, Little Mac can do it too with his rapid jab finisher, but his aerials aren't good and I think it was mainly used to connect KO Uppercut
Dtilt post-Melee
Nerfed in Brawl with a drop in damage, 13% to 12%, introduction of a 9% sour-spot, and drop in knockback growth from 125 to 90 that while justified due to the change in fall speed and how gravity affected vertical knockback, but might have been too much considering its base knockback was left alone at 25
Gained another sour-spot through a 9% disjoint that gives it about a third more range than it's supposed to have while the old sour-spot was increased to 11%, 12% hitbox became sweet-spot, and base knockback increase that should have been there since Brawl
Keep in mind that this is a frame 7, 3 active frames, 19 recovery low attack
There is absolutely no reason why it should have a disjoint like this and personally, Melee's Dtilt, but tweaked would have been way better since it would have been consistent at the cost of its more than needed range; Falco has Ftilt for that
Sour-spots on Down Smash and Uair since Melee, his debut game
Close hitboxes on his thighs for Down Smash that send people up with reduced damage and rarely if every should hit someone unless you get that unlucky because the opponent's hurtbox collided with them instead of the hitboxes on his legs and feet
Uair's body hitbox that has essentially no knockback
"Fixed" in 1.0.8 Smash 4 where they removed it, but also changed Uair to a juggle move by reducing its startup and overall knockback on a character with one of the slower horizontal movement in the game and whose Uair is a frontflip, so it hits in front of him later than on someone like Captain Falcon. Good job.
Fair post-Brawl
Stupid landing frame data
It had 33 landing frames in Brawl and 32 pre-1.0.8 Smash 4
What in the world would this move being doing to necessitate a massive landing lag like that? Dropping people in Brawl because auto-link angles didn't function well in Brawl?
Keep in mind that they doubled the startup from Brawl to launch Smash 4, from 6 frames to 12
Smash 4 reduced the landing lag to 25 frames
Massive disjoint for its landing hit when the landing animation gives no indication of there being a hit as Falco just flops down and 1.0.4 moved it forward I believe; a crutch for its still dumb landing lag in Smash 4
Dair
Frame 5 spike in Melee and Brawl with high active frames for its spike hit or in the non-PAL versions of Melee, spiked for all its 20 active frames
How was this ever a good idea?
Blaster
Lasers traveled the entire screen until Smash 4 where it was reduced to two thirds of Final Destination
Recovery was increased per game until the E3 demo of Ultimate
35 ground and 30 air in Melee; okay outside of the ability to auto-cancel
45 ground and 32 air in Brawl; nobody used it on the ground, so the +10 recovery frames didn't matter
Faster startup at frame 12 ground and 10 air compared to Melee's 23 ground and 13 air
48 ground and 41 air in Smash 4 and auto-canceling removed for everyone; sure let's also increase the recovery even more when what made it have low recovery was auto-canceling
Fire Bird post-Melee
Similar moves function differently for other characters, but not Fire Bird for Falco; starting in Brawl, it became a worse version of Fox's Fire Fox and Wolf's Fire Wolf
Fire Fox launched on the same frame, but traveled faster, further, and did not lock Fox's free-fall aerial movement
Fire Wolf launched at half the frames it took Fire Bird and had the same travel distance
Never changed in Smash 4 and has yet to be confirmed if it's anything, but an inferior Fire Fox and Fire Wolf
Falco Phantasm
The largest horizontal spike in every game and relative to each game with maybe the exception of Ultimate (to be confirmed)
Debuted in a game with the highest fall speed
What in the seven Hells made any of this a good idea? Wolf Flash has limitations where it only spikes with a certain hitbox while this busted move spikes anyone when used in the air and on airborne opponents
Smash 4 halved its hitbox and never even mentions it as like something that makes it different from Fox's Fox Illusion in a tip
I doubt they expected crazy folk to go through footage frame by frame to look for stuff, but people do want information. The only substantial things confirmed with Falco so far is that he has a new rapid jab finisher that I would surmise that in addition to having a better hitbox or coverage since it's more vertical is to prevent him from being able to do rapid jab cancels at the ledge, Fair seems to be frame 8, Dair seems to be frame 10 and still have its 23 landing frames, and Blaster's recovery is around 28 frames on the ground instead of 48. Everything else is minor or universal like dash cancels, rapid jabs look like they hit every frame instead of having a pause, or people looking like they're faster in general. Dair being frame 10, but having 23 landing frames seem like a compromise, but at the same time, characters shown off so far had reduced landing lag for most if not all their aerials. Sometimes it's small like Zelda's seems to be about 2 frames less while other characters like Ike lost 4 to 11 frames of landing lag on his aerials in addition to reduced startup, about 1 to 2 frames.
Essentially, I just want to see. At least how he moves more than just the few seconds in the Direct and at least to see what Fire Bird looks like and does. Lowered recovery on Blaster is great, but there's so much more that has me worried if they're going in the right direction with Falco. By that, I mean are they getting rid of stupid and weird stuff that is easily visible like Dtilt's disjoint or Fair's landing disjoint and high landing lag that seemed tied together or are they making Fire Bird something different compared to Fire Fox and Fire Wolf. Some of the stuff we can't see unless by chance it happens like if Falco's Down Smash still has the dumbass sour-spot, but for a character who I feel like is a problematic character and who has never really been showcased before a Smash's release, it's concerning and a bit perplexing. Falco appears in trailers of the games, but I don't think he's ever had a focus and he usually drops down on us when the game's released and so far, it's been bad. Busted in Melee and Brawl, carried over odd decisions in each game and nerfs that weren't really felt in Brawl to Smash 4, and Ultimate is just a waiting game of is this going to be another Smash 4 Falco or another Brawl Falco? Is this going to be yet another time when Falco shows up with (more) stupid things that could have been addressed if they let people publicly see and playtest him.
With regards to movement, what I'm thinking is that they upped the ground movement and probably the aerial movement floor of the characters in addition to individual buffs to a character's movement. So, instead of 1.15, Robin's run speed, being the lowest, it's possibly around 1.45. Ganondorf and Zelda sure as hell do not look like they're rocking 1.218 and 1.3 run speeds, respectively, like they did in Smash 4 and Ultimate Zelda's dash looks really good. Granted, Smash 4 Zelda's dash was 1.6, the same as Mario and Ryu's, but dash speeds might have been increased as well and more like a dash from other fighting games where dashes are quick bursts of movement and that do cover a good amount of distance compared to in previous Smash games.
Unfortunately for Falco, the one instance he's shown running and dashing is during the dash cancel bit with Luigi. He looks like he's just as fast or barely as faster than Luigi. Funny enough, Falco was barely slower than Luigi in Smash 4 where Luigi's run was 1.5 and Falco's was 1.472 and Falco was also barely faster than Wolf in Brawl where Wolf at least had high horizontal aerial mobility which he's probably going to keep and might even get buffed in. If Luigi's run speed was not buffed, then Falco's back to his Melee run speed. I doubt it since Luigi at least in non-Smash games is usually faster or as fast as Mario, so maybe Luigi having Mario's run speed or at least close to it would make sense and Mario as ever looks pretty fast and maybe faster than in Smash 4. If it's actually Falco's high dash speed was enough make up for Luigi's higher run speed and the short distance not letting use see Luigi overtake Falco or catch up to him, then Falco has a chance to be beyond screwed in horizontal movement again. All the other characters are getting faster with the slower ones shortening the gap between him or becoming faster. That said, it's just based on a short and zoomed up footage of gameplay.
TL;DR: I really hope that they do more invitationals and rotate in different characters.
He said in a tweet that he thinks zelda isn't that much better than she was in S4 so I doubt it.
Referring to that vid you just posted. I remember nairo stating that din's fire still wasn't good off stage because people can just go past it and edgeguard zelda while she is vulnerable. He said he had proof as a match vs esam where he went far offstage to edguard nairo. Is that vid 1:00 in the scene?
Well when you use the move backwards I can kinda understand his point. You are suppose to use it against people recovering, not when you are the one offstage trying to recover lol. There is literally no reason to be the aggressor when your main goal is to get back on stage... Especially with a punishable move that basically locks you in place. He also only used phantom slash once that entire match vs DK. I find it funny that the people saying she still sucks are the ones choosing not to use her new tools or trying to use them in impractical manners, then complaining when it doesn't work and play aggressive.
Welp, I used Din's fire and made myself super vulnerable offstage and got killed for it, guess Din's Fire is still bad lol.
Some dthrow followups we've seen so far. Dthrow to upair not looking true (but the Zelda reacted late so perhaps if you're frame perfect?). Dthrow bair is maybe true?
Well when you use the move backwards I can kinda understand his point. You are suppose to use it against people recovering, not when you are the one offstage trying to recover lol. There is literally no reason to be the aggressor when your main goal is to get back on stage... Especially with a punishable move that basically locks you in place. He also only used phantom slash once that entire match vs DK. I find it funny that the people saying she still sucks are the ones choosing not to use her new tools or trying to use them in impractical manners, then complaining when it doesn't work and play aggressive.
Welp, I used Din's fire and made myself super vulnerable offstage and got killed for it, guess Din's Fire is still bad lol.
I agree with this SO much. I've seen a lot of "oh her frame data is still pretty similar so she's terrible again" but they're not thinking...outside the box? I guess? Like all the new things she can do with the Phantom, or how the airdodge mechanics will affect her offstage game, or how she can do any attack from a dash now. These are big changes, and writing her off so early when most new/modified moves and mechanics aren't even being used isn't fair.
So far the only gameplay of Zelda I've seen where the player truly took advantage of her new stuff has been the Japanese footage...
Why people are playing Zelda like instead of a zoner like Pac-Man is beyond me.
If she is that slow and has that level of commitment to her strong attacks why are you approaching like you are playing a rushdown character? This is a really strange thing people do that only shows that her overall badness in Smash gave her very little competitive identity to most Smashers.
I honestly want to see how Phantom is used to establish neutral, land, or even edgeguard (along with her new dash tilts and smashes) before I make further judgments. I don't see her being any better than or even :ultrobin in Smash 4, but she needs to be at least treated like them and not like or .
Phantom is going to be the main tool she uses to do something if she is able to do anything at all. I find it ironic Transform being removed from Zelda didn't change the fact that Zelda's character is still her down B. Some things never change.
At this point I'm pretty sure SSBU Zelda has ruined Sm4sh Zelda for me. She looks and feels so stiff now even after all these years of getting used to her.
Also, I just noticed that the true queen of smash managed to make it on the main Smashboards banner at the top of the page...and first in line at that!
Might as well leave here an abundance of False Swipe Gaming inspired looks at characters in fighting games here.
Roll being a secret character for this game and being the sister to Mega Man, you'd think she'd be good as well right? Well... no.
Roll sits as the worst character in Marvel 1, while she is smaller which makes her harder to hit; many of her moves are unsafe and has poor vitality/health. There's also the fact that she has to get in really close to the opponent just to do any damage something that Mega Man can sort of evade.
Her range is also pretty poor as well, infact; why use Roll when Mega Man already does what she tries to do. Characters like Gambit and Strider just demolish her and easily outrange her. So yeah, don't use Roll, only if you want to use her as a joke.
With the introduction of Marvel 2. You'd think Roll would actually improve and get some good stuff, but nope; she stayed in the exact same place as she did during her debut, maybe even worse.
Roll now sits in her own tier called "Roll Tier", the bottom of the barrel of competitive Marvel 2. With the meta dominated by Sentinel (The best character in the game), Magneto, Storm, Cable, CapCom and Psylocke, it's incredibly hard for Roll to get anything going; despite this, Sentinel helps her out incredibly well with his amazing assist. But...
You're using Roll, a character that only goes even with Servbot, the 2nd worst character in the game! Roll has non-existent results competitively and is not worth running at all; but at least Shoryuken has some very insightful and helpful information how to improve with Roll.
Pick someone else.
Roll actually got some well needed buffs. And thankfully, she's not the worst character in the game now. She sits around the lower tiers, but some have theorized that she could be High Tier.
So what kind of changes did Roll get? Well, her entire moveset was completely overhauled; instead of trying to be like Mega Man, she now has become a Charge character of some sort. With the ability to power up her broom to make her moves more powerful as well, she's quite a force to be reckoned with, her combo game was also greatly buffed as well; being able to do a solid amount of damage, and the burst mechanic helped her tremendously as a get off me tool and even being able to Baroque cancel her moves to allow her to do even more damage.
Her small size again makes her hard to combo (Which she shares with only Viewtiful Joe). The broom gave her a good range buff, solid traps; good OTG options and is a good assist with the water bucket that can cause a stagger or hit low. Her Hypers are decent as well. Speaking of which, her power up special buffs her Broom and Water Bucket; the Water Bucket will instead shoot fullscreen, her charge special will do more damage and her 236 Special also gets a wallbounce when charged up. Her Level 3 is a good combo finisher or if you just need to get raw damage.
If all of this greatly helped her, what's holding her back? It depends on what kind of assist she has that supports her; Casshern and Tekkaman Blade are amazing assist characters for her that help with OTG conversions, crossups and even to an extent, extensions as well. But if those characters are down for the count, Roll is sort of a sitting duck.
Her charge Hyper while good for damage, is unsafe when it OTGs; leaving her open for counterattacks and punishes (As the swing leaves her unsafe). Her Life Pellet Hyper is one of the worst in the game; it leaves her open for punishes, and the opponent can negate the healing by either hitting Roll or getting hit by the pellet itself (Which does pathetic damage).
Despite all this, Roll has seen some decent tournament results more recently, allied with Alex and Frank West. Roll may even improve in the future.
So how good was Roll? Well, first two games she was outright god awful; but in Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, she was starting to hold her own and become a pretty decent character. Roll was held back by the strong and high speed metagame that both Marvel games had, but with TvC; she could keep up somewhat with decent combos, damage and being a good assist character as well.
Roll had a rough life cycle in Vs. Capcom, but with how she managed to adapt in TvC and even provide help with whoever she teamed up with, she could be more annoying then previously. Now I just hope they make a TvC2.
Morrigan's debut in Marvel 1 was a rough time. Sitting in Low Tier alongside Hulk and Shadow Lady.
While her Supers do provide some solid cover and her normals and specials are really fast, her health is pretty low and she needs to use a lot of meter just to get off her strategy provided to fight.
In a way, you can say she's easily outclassed by another shoto, the iconic roaming warrior Ryu, who does her job better, albeit by just a small amount.
Morrigan's hardest matchups include Red Venom, Gold War Machine, Chun-Li, Spider-Man and Gambit. Therefore, she sits down in Low Tier. Having trouble against a decent chunk of the cast.
Morrigan didn't really change much when MvC2 came around, she sat in the Low Tier section yet again, struggling and being outclassed by characters that do her job far better.
While popular in casual play, this doesn't really help her compete against some of the best characters in the game. Sentinel just straight up eats her for breakfast, Magneto can catch her off guard with his insane mixups and crossups thanks to his IAD.
Cable can do what she does but even better, thanks to laying traps, Hyper Viper Beams and having a great assist as well.
Again, Morrigan sits in Low Tier; not moving much from her place from the last game.
With a new model and animations, you think Morrigan would fare pretty well in TvC right? Nope! Again, she's outclassed.
Morrigan has below average health compared to the rest of the cast, and lost her beam Super in exchange for... a very underwhelming drill super, seriously; this move is pretty poor. But enough about that, Morrigan's Supers are pretty slow for the most part, Finishing Shower can be comboed into with the right assist. But again, she is outclassed... by none other than Ryu.
Ryu is often seen in TvC as the best rendition of himself by far; having strong combos, a solid extension by his assist and doing strong damage as well; overall, Morrigan again is outclassed, sitting somewhere around the Mid to Low Tiers. Morrigan tends to have a hard time dealing with Zero, Tekkaman Blade, PTX, Ryu, the list is fairly sizeable here.
Oh boy! Here we go! The hellfire and the aftermath that Morrigan left in her wake.
Morrigan got an insane amount of buffs from vanilla Marvel. She gained some extra moves, usable assists, better combos, a new Hyper that replaced the awful Drill Super with a solid OTG Super and synergy. At what cost? Well, probably killing the hype and meta of Marvel? Probably?
Morrigan went from a Mid to Low Tier all the way to Top Tier, sitting alongside Vergil, Doctor Doom, Magneto and Wolverine just to name a few.
Morrigan's quite infamous nowadays for the hellfire that is MorriDoom core; a nasty and very sleepy core that involving Morrigan doing Down, Down + Super and locking down the opponent with Doctor Doom's Hidden Missiles Assist, this created a nasty playstyle that was more about keeping the opponent out of her zone and chipping them away; preventing them from doing ANYTHING to them.
There were very few counters to this strategy; one would be a potent rushdown playstyle that RyanLV performed with Chun-Li (But he also ran Morrigan and Marvel Phoenix, so he gets several points deducted from me. :V), PR Rog and Justin Wong were able to perform; even KaneBlueRiver, famous for running his Mid Tier team of Hulk/Sentinel/Haggar managed to beat this core of ChrisG's team and win EVO 2015.
But, Morrigan made her place in the meta, as an infamous zoner and keepaway character, capable of building meter quickly and taking it away.
So we can probably blame Morrigan for killing a majority of hype for Marvel 3.
So how good was Morrigan? For the most part, outclassed.
Morrigan had not really changed that much during her time in the Vs. Capcom series; it was only until Ultimate Marvel 3 where she eventually became relevant in the Versus series; being able to gain and steal meter, flight cancel, actually have solid Supers; but honestly at what cost? This may be from my negative impressions on Marvel 3 Morrigan due to how infamous she got due to her zoning and keepaway playstyle she eventually got known for with the Doom Missiles Core.
But other then that, Morrigan was outclassed for a majority of her lifetime in Marvel. So I'd say she was... okay?
In Marvel 1; Ryu debuted as a Mid Tier character, however what makes him unique and stand out from the others is his "Stance Hypers", depending on the input and motion, Ryu can either get Ken Masters' mechanics or Akuma's mechanics.
He has good Normals, easy to play and understand and strong rushdown and Hyper combos.
Despite all of this, he is very relient on Stocks and his options are not too great.
Some of his best counters are the afformentioned Red Venom, both War Machines, and Chun-Li. Despite these, Ryu can do okay with some Higher Tiered characters like Gambit and Wolverine. Again, Ryu sits in Mid Tier. An okay start for the World Warrior.
Ryu dwindled a bit when it came to Marvel 2.
With the sheer dominance of Sentinel, Storm, Magneto and Cable. Ryu had trouble keeping up and fell down in the same tier as Morrigan that was covered last time.
Ryu genuinely needs to be played carefully but also smart in order to make use of many of his moves in Marvel 2. His counters are pretty much all the High and Top Tiers of the game, he has even matchups with Ken, Morrigan, Sakura and B.B. Hood.
Ryu sits in Low Tier, having also lose his Ken and Akuma Mode from Marvel 1 due to those two being added as well.
This part is going to be incredibly lengthy, so bear with us.
Ryu got some incredible buffs in this rendition and is considered by many to be his best version in these competitive games.
Ryu could be played in a mixture of different ways, aggressive, defensive, mix of both; you name it.
Ryu sat pretty far up on the Tier List. Sitting near the Top Tiers, his damage output got increased, and comparing his assist to Morrigans, you can tell that Ryu's does more damage then hers, which again makes it so that Ryu can do her job even better. WAY BETTER infact.
Ryu can bait Megacrashes with Tatsus, can charge in by using Hadoukens as shields in Baroque, just being all around strong character. And its all thanks to the Baroque mechanic, a system which would trade the player's red health in exchange for increased damage.
And Ryu benefited greatly from it, this allowed Ryu to do almost anything with it; it allowed him to make his air Shoryu an instant overhead, he could combo off 6B with it and IAD crossup with it.
His Supers were really good too, Shinkuu Tatsumaki has invul on startup, meaning if Ryu does an unsafe move, he can bait out a punish with this and catch them offguard, it also acts as an incredible anti-cross up tool, Shinkuu Hadouken is fast and can punish well, and Shin Shoryuken can do a ton of damage and can be comboed off of too.
While there has been no official tier list yet, it's safe to say that Ryu is within the Top 5 of this game, along with Tekkaman Blade, PTX and Zero. An incredible placing for Ryu.
Ryu sadly lost all of that when making it into Ultimate Marvel 3.
With the sheer dominance of Morrigan who now stole Ryu's throne, Ryu sits now in the Mid to Low Tiers.
However, Ryu still has some solid stuff going for him. Ryu can synergise pretty well with characters like Sentinel, Magneto, Akuma and Doctor Doom which allow him to do some strong extensions off of their assists.
Plus, Ryu was one of the lucky few to gain access to a new Super, similar to how Morrigan became the Hype-killer, Ryu became the Hype himself; which powered up all of his Specials and Supers albeit for a short amount of time.
However, Ryu not only lose Baroque which made him incredible in TvC, he also lost his Magic System; so no longer can he do L into 2L, Ryu must commit with just standard L into M into H.
Despite this, Ryu had one top level player that made him work; being RayRay. RayRay used Ryu for the longest of time and was able to reach Top 8 pretty frequently in locals and majors early in the meta. But as it further developed and Morrigan got figured out, RayRay eventually swapped out Ryu for Doctor Doom; so he could deal with the ever evolving landscape of this battle-torn field.
So how GOOD was Ryu? He was okay.
Ryu started off alright in Marvel 1, only to be under High Tier three times throughout his time in the Versus Series, the only time he was beyond that was in Tatsunoko vs. Capcom; where he was incredible.
He had trouble getting things going as the metas evolved for most of the games he's been in; but other then that, Ryu has always followed the way of the warrior, no matter how hard the matchup is; Ryu will always try his hardest, and that's something I think we can all inspire from. Never give up and always keep improving, just like Ryu.
Despite being 3rd best in the game right now; we'll also be looking back at how Marth actually debuted as well.
During early competitive Melee, Marth had a very strong debut during the first compromised tier list, then again this was back when Zelda was considered... Top... 8? Really? Man, early tier lists are weird.
But anyway, even though Roy was in the game as well; there were enough differences to seperate them, but this was during a time where many considered Marth far too relient on rolling and abusing his Smash Attacks, which led to negative reception on how Marth was being played However, despite this; Marth actually sat at 4th on the Tier List and while Marth was incredible at the start, it wasn't until one player who went by the name of Ken appeared, and showed how truly strong Marth can be.
Utilising his amazing grab range, his sword range and tipper and the infamous Ken Combo named after himself; ever since Ken's debut into Melee, Marth saw a huge increase in usage and began winning multiple tournaments thanks to the sheer dominance of the Hero King.
Marth's best MUs include Peach, Ice Climbers, the Mario Bros and Yoshi. With Marth's hardest MUs being against Jigglypuff and Sheik, also going even against Ganondorf, Falcon and both Space Animals Fox and Falco.
All in all, Marth has done incredibly well and sit at 3rd on the Tier List, just behind Fox and Falco and is seeing usage from PPMD, Mew2King and so on.
Marth hadn't changed much when transitioning from Melee to Brawl, but he's still a Top Tier threat.
With the dominance of Ice Climbers and Meta Knight, Marth still found a way to comfortably make it into Top Level play, still having access to his Ken Combo, albeit not a true way to get to it anymore, Marth still has done incredibly well in Brawl, having Even Matchups against Ice Climbers, Diddy Kong, Olimar, Snake and Falco. Only having a bad Matchup against non other then Meta Knight, the King of Brawl.
Players such as Mr. R, NEO and Mike Haze have shown how strong Marth can be and have made tons of headway with Marth, even with Meta Knight and Ice Climbers banned in tournaments; Marth still does incredible, consistently getting Top 8.
Because of this, Marth sits comfortably in the Top 5 of Brawl's Tier List. Another fantastic placing for the Hero King.
First off, we'll also be covering Lucina as well, since both are similar.
When Smash 4 first came out, Marth and Lucina were both considered to be the worst renditions by far, with both sitting at Low to Bottom Tier, a huge farcry from Marth's initial placements in the Melee and Brawl Tier Lists.
Despite this, they did see some notable recognition, but not enough to make them noteworthy or threatening. Until one thing that came into the game that changed everything in Smash 4.
Patches and Balance Changes. For the first time in Smash's history; Smash 4 got official balance changes and fixes, and these changes were very kind to Marth and Lucina.
Both sharing the same balances and improvements to help them in the meta. With buffs include more range, angle fixes and even damage buffs; these helped both the Hero King and the Future Princess fight back in a harsh meta.
But to top it all off, notable players such as Mr. E and NEO did bring Marth to the limelight, whereas Kogarasuma, ZeRo and Nairo have shown how strong Lucina can be as well; but it was MKLeo, who managed to dominate with Marth, which in turn also helped Lucina out as well, with Leo's huge streak of wins involving Marth.
Marth's notable matchups include Luigi, Ness, Mewtwo and Fox who he does really well with; whereas Lucina's are Sheik, Mario, Cloud and Diddy Kong, for some MUs that Marth struggles with, Lucina can help cover; however their hardest matchups include Bayonetta (I mean, it's Bayonetta), Bowser and Donkey Kong who all really love to grab Marcina and combo them off of grabs and kill really early.
Marth as of now, is now sitting back in Top Tier, with Lucina not far behind in High Tier, though players have argued that Lucina should also be in Top Tier with Marth, due to both characters sharing similarities and even ZeRo; former No. 1 player in the world agrees on this.
So, inconclusion? Yeah, Marth (And Lucina) are amazing. And we all know it.
Marth may have had a rough start in both Melee and Wii U, but overtime; the meta and overall changes to the games were kind to Marth and Lucina, allowing them to eventually flourish and make a name for themselves, doing incredibly well against even the hardest of matchups.
There hasn't been a character like Marth in all of Smash, consistently Top Tier in all games he's been in; have notable wins, winning a majority of tournaments and an overall really good character.
Very early on in Melee's life, Zelda was actually seen as a High Tier; sitting at 7th on the official Tier List. But that was back in 2001.
Now... she's really struggling, being in the Bottom 5 of the Tier List, but before we get to all of the problems she has; what good stuff does she have?
Well, for starters; Zelda has the fastest Down Smash in the game, with the hitbox coming out at Frame 4, the fastest out of all of the characters, she has some of the strongest Aerials in the shape of Forward and Back Air; she has a long reaching Up B and is also one of the only characters to be able to completely change into another character.
Now for the bad... Zelda's a glass cannon, but more glass then cannon; with a fast paced metagame, Zelda really struggles to get in and keep opponents out; characters like Fox, Falco and Captain Falcon just eat her up for breakfast, her Side B is absolutely pitiful to use; not sending the opponent as far even with a sweetspot and it can leave her going into freefall. Many of her hitboxes are poor and do not fit with the accurate size of some of her attacks, and with Smash DI, it makes all of her moves really bad and easy to escape, not only that, her Neutral was incredibly poor, same with her movement too.
The only reason to use Zelda is involving Sheik; both characters can freely transform into the other with Down B, and Zelda's Up B has more reach then Sheik's. Meaning Zelda is only used for one thing and that's it.
There is only one player that is dedicated to Zelda, being The Lake. He is currently the only Zelda main out of everyone in competitive who not only has results, but also helps keep Zelda on the map in his home county.
That said, Zelda struggles incredibly hard and has found herself 21st on the Tier List, sitting alongside Mewtwo and Roy. Yikes.
Zelda recieved a nice, healthy amount of buffs, and just like before; she was seen as a solid character early in the games life; sitting at Mid Tier at 20th, but again; Zelda started to dwindle in usage and recognition.
But let's go through the buffs, first off; Zelda's Forward Smash is much more difficult to Smash DI out of, she runs faster, some of her moves got better damage output, and she even has the 3rd longest grab in the game.
Now for the bad. Zelda had several hitboxes shrunk to compensate for their power, meaning you have to be accurate and you have to dedicate to an option, no way around it. Again, Sheik is better and sits around Mid Tier compared to where Zelda is. And her Neutral and movement are still bad compared to Melee, infact maybe even worse.
Zelda's hardest matchups include Meta Knight and Olimar and Ice Climbers; whereas her best matchup is ironically against Ganondorf, the worst character in the game.
The only known player to have stayed with Zelda is ven, widely considered to be one of the best Zeldas in the world. But that doesn't really help our Princess at all.
With all said and done, Zelda sits at 37th on the Tier List, as the 2nd worst character in the game.
Firstly, the Zelda/Sheik core that was part of both characters moveset was completely removed, and allowed Zelda to be her own character and not tethered to another, this also granted Zelda a healthy amount of buffs and a new Down B, in the shape of Phantom Slash.
Phantom Slash was both a wall and an attack, allowing Zelda to protect herself and push opponents away, and deal heavy shield damage to the opponent who dare want to contest the Phantom.
Many of her moves also got buffs in damage and knockback; but also had to compensate with slight range decrease too, and through Smash 4's lifecycle, Zelda got a nice handful of buffs throughout the game. And even early on, Zelda was sitting at High Tier once again in the early days of Smash 4. Not only that, Zelda got a brand new kill option, being her Up B, when sweetspotted; the move can now kill at incredibly low percents, as low as 40% when involving Rage.
...And you know what's going to happen, it's deja vu all again.
Zelda was eventually figured out and players have declared that despite these buffs, Zelda got even worse then before. Sheik was back to being Top Tier just like in the Melee days, and benefited greatly from Bouncing Fish which helped enhanced her recovery, whereas Zelda had to struggle with Up B, while hard to counter against; made it incredibly exploitable due to her not having another way to protect herself when recovering.
Zelda also lost some tools during the patches, one of them being Love Jumping, which allowed Zelda to gain horizontal momentum after taking knockback and tilting the Control Stick at an angle; with the removal of this tech, it hurt Zelda even more.
Her Neutral was still bad and is still bad to this day, which means characters like Bayonetta, Diddy Kong, Cloud, Mario, Ryu, Mewtwo, the list goes on can really exploit her weakness of her neutral and greatly benefit from it and comboing her to death.
With that said, there are surprisingly some more players that have stay dedicated to Zelda, players like maXy, ven and Onpu just to name a few have shown how well Zelda can do in the meta and even against some of her biggest threats. Nairo formerly mained her in Smash 4, before dropping her altogether for Zero Suit who is flat out better.
Overall, Zelda just couldn't change with the meta and remained exactly where she was, in Bottom Tier, sitting in the Bottom 3.
So how good was... You know what, let's cut to it.
Zelda sucks. She's REALLY bad.
Zelda has had chances to shine early on in every single title she's been in within Smash. Only to have it ripped out of her hands and get relegated to being a Low Tier. Zelda has been consistently going from Good to Bad, EVERY. SINGLE. GAME.
She struggles getting in and out, and while she did see some improvements, they're just not enough to help her out in the meta of each game.
But with the E3 Build of Smash Ultimate and players saying Zelda's good... we can only hope that this ain't Deja Vu all over again. I'm sorry Zelda, you definitely deserve better then this.
Sentinel stands as an amazing character in his debut in Children of the Atom.
Having one of the best throw ranges in the game and capable of doing fantastic damage and even being amazing at controlling space; with fly and stomp cancels, Sentinel has a lot going for him, sitting currently as 3rd Best in the game right behind Wolverine and Omega Red.
But even the Mutant Hunter has problems as well; despite all of these amazing positives, he's one of the tallest characters in the game, which can lead him to being combo food and also having an OTG Penalty as well.
Despite all of this, Sentinel sits comfortably in Top Tier.
Sentinel decided that 3rd best with only 11 characters wasn't good enough. So he became the God of Marvel 2, sitting as the best character in the game.
Sentinel has recieved incredible buffs that make him a staple on any team and can synergise with almost any character. Good damage? Check. Great range? Check. Best assist in the game? Check. Unblockables? Check.
Sentinel is just an amazing character, sure he still has some issues, but the Wackbot just doesn't care about those weaknesses; one of them being due to his insane size; he's combo food. But again, Sentinel doesn't even care.
Sentinel is one of the reasons why about 75% of the cast is unplayable. He's THAT good; his Sentinel Drones assist is one of the best assists in the game, providing protection for the team and being able to do a ton of damage as well. Hyper Sentinel Force is one of the fastest Hypers in the game, coming out incredibly fast and able to combo into itself and even provide pressure on the opponent and distance themselves from him.
Sentinel is often seen on almost every team out there; he just combos well with every single character out there.
Sad news for Sentinel! He got nerfed.
Sentinel used to have the highest health pool of any character, but now it's below average; not only that, he lost many of his tools that made him amazing in Marvel 2; his unblockables are gone, Sentinel Drones (a) is slower and weaker; plus his tall stature plagues with him problems again with being combo food. Plus, with the meta getting dominated and plagued by the toxic, I mean horrors of Morrigan Spam and Doom Missiles, it's been a rough time for the Mutant Hunter.
Buuut, he's still a strong assist character and can still do good damage.
Top level players like KaneBlueRiver, GCYoshi and RayRay have shown how strong Sentinel can be, capable of synergising well with other characters like Vergil, Doctor Doom, Magneto, Storm and even some of the lower tiered characters too like Hsien-Ko. His damage potential and combo potential is still incredibly good, being able to loop Hard Drive into itself from a Super Jump Cancel, still having good range and even having Standing Medium snuff out projectiles as well.
Sentinel once the God of Marvel 2 now sits in Mid Tier; a huge far cry from his original placings in the older games.
Sentinel was really damn good!
Starting off as a Top Tier threat in Children of the Atom, to eventually becoming the God of Marvel 2 that changed the meta to what it is now. Sentinel was an amazing character back in his hayday, but ever since UMvC3 came out; Sentinel started to lose steam, and with how Marvel Infinite is going, I doubt we'll see Wackbot return anytime soon.
Sentinel was game defining and while he did lose his touch; he's still a powerful threat that shouldn't be overlooked, even in a game where Bullet Hells are a thing.
At 6:50 in this vid at the very start of the fight against Link you can see Zelda start charging the phantom, cancel it early by bouncing on the ropes to the boxing ring, then the phantom keeps putting itself together without her and does its fully charged attack. I’ve yet to see this happen before now and it makes me wonder what else could cancel Zelda’s phantom charging animation. https://youtu.be/WrQa20xzhvg
At 6:50 in this vid at the very start of the fight against Link you can see Zelda start charging the phantom, cancel it early by bouncing on the ropes to the boxing ring, then the phantom keeps putting itself together without her and does its fully charged attack. I’ve yet to see this happen before now and it makes me wonder what else could cancel Zelda’s phantom charging animation. https://youtu.be/WrQa20xzhvg
