Raykushi did a nice talk about his impressions of Zelda after 50+ games of dedicated playing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tI2NMxpymFk
Here’s a summary:
- Our Jab is similar to Palutena’s in terms of utility now though not as ridiculous follow ups. Jab1 is actually surprisingly low commitment and good as a mixup. It can be used to stuff approaches really well compared to the old Jab since it’s much faster at frame 4 instead of 11.
One example he used was jabbing someone’s shield and reacting to their following spotdodge by simply continuing to multi jab, since the input window is fairly lenient.
Another being stuffing an approaching character’s attempt to grab with Jab1, where old Jab would have been too slow otherwise to counterattack.
- Utilt is her best tilt for sure. It combos, it has some sort of wide reach/intangibility since he apparently never traded with anyone’s aerial approach so long as he timed it correctly, making it a great anti-air. Because of it’s fast speed and low lag, it’s also very noncommital. Most likely one of Zelda’s staples.
Ftilt is largely the same.
Dtilt is still good for combo conversions and a fast move, but will most likely be dethroned by Utilt for overall useability.
- Smashes are about the same it seems, but Usmash obviously having an anti air quality to it similarly to Utilt.
- Fair/Bair’s reduced landing lag allowed for another follow up kick opportunity despite an initial sourspot hit. At certain percentages, even the sourspot connecting still kept Zelda safe. Overall, the kicks are reasonably safer to use. Fair is also now a practical carbon copy of Bair frame wise and power wise.
The range and power haven’t changed much, but the sweetspot is definitely improved in a way that you can sweetspot at closer ranges. If Zelda’s sweetspot is normally her ankle let’s say, then you could say the sweetspot hitbox has extended further up her leg, allowing for closer quarters sweetspotting.
Nair’s final hit now sends opponents away depending on the side it hits on. If you hit on the right side, it launches them to the right, left to the left. If you hard drift into your opponent, you could cause them to get launched the other way- which can allow for interesting positioning.
Uair is definitely a bit bigger. According to the Zelda discord and them, they tried to recreate scenarios from the demo videos and found Smash 4 Uair did not connect in some of these.
- Dair appears to be safe against shield, allowing for reliable aerial shield pressure. It’s also has neat combo capabilities due to it’s noticeably reduced landing lag.
- Nayru’s is still really good, plus not losing your momentum is probably a good thing in the end.
Farore’s teleport happens much faster, and there’s also less landing lag. Because of the much earlier drift, it allows better mixups with recovering. It also allows for better sniping because of it’s increased teleport speed.
Din’s is much faster and more flexible to manuever. Because of the removal of freefall and the highly increased commitment to airdodging and only getting 1 airdodge in the air, edgeguarding with this in combination with Phantom can be very devastating.
One point they made was to jump of the ledge with Din’s against a recovering opponent, forcing the airdodge while also simultaneously positioning yourself for an edgeguard as you float off stage- which is something the old Din’s would have never allowed.
Phantom is going to be intergral to Zelda’s play, similar to to what bananas is for Diddy. If you saw a Diddy that isn’t using bananas, they’re probably playing Diddy wrong- same for Zelda and her Phantom Slash.
Any Phantom with a sword is really good- the overhead slash Phantom apparently has a ton of range. Delayed Phantom not only has trap capabilities, but can solidly cover otherwise risky options like raw Farore Sniping. It’s edgeguard capabilities are immense and should really be heavily noted. It takes about 1 second to fully charge, and has noticeably less afterlag. It just overall has tons of applications and will definitely be an integral part of her kit.
- Uthrow is definitely the new kill throw, giving Zelda a really nice mid percent kill option that requires no setup. Beware of staling though, and try to preserve Uthrow for kills only.
Dthrow is still a good combo throw until higher percentages.
Bthrow is a decent kill throw.
Fthrow has very bad kb growth despite it’s impressive base kb. Purely for positioning.
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General Notes and Impressions / Theory
- Keep in mind that despite everyone getting buffed across the board landing lag etc wise, you have to remember not all buffs are equal for everyone. Sheik getting more options is not nearly as big an improvement as Zelda getting more options as an example. Sheik already has safe options, so adding more onto that won’t really change much about her- but Zelda getting options will cause a bigger increase in performance due to her not having very much in the first place. Things like acting out of dash, the universal jumpsquat speed, airdodge changes, shields being nerfed are all things that benefit Zelda a lot compared to characters who were already comfortable with their toolkit.
The changes to her moveset also cover a lot of her big weaknesses.
1. Neutral is better with faster, noncommital options to deal with faster opponent aggression.
2. Approach options are better due to the overall decreased landing lag from aerials as well as using things like Phantom to cover approaches.
3. With reliable kill options at mid percent, she no longer has to land any of her unsafe, slow kill moves raw to secure KOs due to having no more setups. Now she has practical, straightforward options like Uthrow to cover this weakness.
4. With utilt being buffed, she has a solid option vs aerial approaches, where before she struggled to deal with aerial angles due to having no safe moves for coverage.
I think that was most of the major points! I might have missed some, but I’m happy to hear some solid feedback from someone who knows Zelda well and dedicated a lot of time playing her for the demo. This IS still the demo though, but overall the outlook is good with this newly, well researched, relevant testimony. Thank you to Raykushi!
