This is exactly how I feel about it too.
Except I'm even more extreme to others because I think she could be as good as 7th
The hardest MUs I believe are Marth, Rob, and Maybe Sonic. But IDK, You know, it hasn't been out long enough to say exactly. But these three all take advantage of different weaknesses she has. Marth outrages her sorta and kills fireballs far to easily. Rob can camp her pretty well because he eats through din's, and sonic can overwhelm her with speed. (It was worse in 2.1) They all also have decent kill moves they can land on Zelda easy enough. To name a few problems.
right on, I feel the same way.
so here's my little spiel on who gives Zelda trouble, and
why.
legend:
DF=Din's Fire
FW=Farore's Wind
NL=Nayru's Love
Ganon
I had trouble with the Man-Cannon at first, but you can space him out pretty easily
don't get caught in his shield pressure game, he'll kill you pretty early with it.
edge guard him hard, he really shouldn't be living if you can get a clean edge guard against him.
Marth
for all the reasons you stated
also his shield pressure is hard to deal with
can punish FW from many ranges, usually with a
high damage combo or kill (WD Fsmash, Usmash, Uair string)
Rob
his gyro is good at limiting zelda's teleport options
Nair and Usmash kill early, and have high priority (I still haven't found a way around them)
Sonic
He's ghey.
He's fast.
I hope they change him for 3.0
I seriously have no advice for this matchup aside from predict his approach and fsmash him.
Also his recovery isn't the best, you can get some good gimps off of Din's + Dair.
C. Falcon
Pretty much the same strategy as against sonic. Bait his approach and punish with
Fsmash, Fair/Bair. When you get a combo on him, go full ****** (nair,usmash, etc.),
build lots of percent and push him offstage, punish his recovery/spike him, repeat.
don't fall into a habit of mindlessly throwing out DF, he can quickly punish you fullscreen
with a death combo, just like sonic can.
Lucario
Lucario is yet another in the series of high-pressure characters with bad recoveries.
his shield is terrible as well, lots of shield-poke setups are much more useful against him.
DF in the way of his Up-B, most of the time you can at least pile on some serious percent,
if not get a clean stock off it. If you can read him, or if he has to go in a straight line, its not
that hard to spike him out of it. Safest way is to put a low-knockback DF in the way and just edgehog.
if he gets in he can combo you for a while, so be sure to get real good at mixing up your DI/SmashDI
so its harder for him to follow up. Generally if you can trade hits with him, he's losing.
Spacies (Fox,Falco,Wolf)
I don't feel to pressured against spacies, since I think we've all been so conditioned to expect what they do.
I generally feel safe just falling with a Nair or Fair/Bair to punish their approach.
Also, Usmash OoS helps to mitigate the pressure somewhat. I've learned to be very patient against spacie pressure.
Edgeguarding them is CAKE. Just plant a DF(Medium) in the way of their side-b, grab the edge,
drop down and get a critical hitbox lightning kick off their Up-b startup. Very free.
Also, if you don't have time to set up a DF, you can Dsmash illusion on reaction, Zelda's Dmsash very fast.
That being said, she does have a weakness against high pressure characters, but this is one matchup
I probably won't be switching for.
Watch out for spikes(falco,wolf) Usmash punishes(fox) and side-b combos(wolf)
Mario Bros.
Mario is really weird to play against. he's like this fusion between doc and mario,
honestly he's pretty good.
his moves have this strange priority, or interaction with Zelda that makes you have
to space really well. I have trouble spiking him, his Up-B has good priority.
Luigi I feel is secretly one of Zelda's worst matchups. His priority cuts through our moves
(Damn you Nair!) He's hard to edge guard properly. His side-b is pretty strong,
plus he slides out of a lot of lightning kick set-ups I have. I also don't feel like Din's fire gives
him that much trouble..
Shiek
Sheik might be hard, I'm not sure I haven't played a great one yet.
Fair kills pretty early, don't get caught near the edge with that.
Lightning kick shield pressure can neutralize Dsmash OoS,
just like against Peach (another high-tier threat that I feel is slightly free to Zelda)
Don't have enough experience to say anything else
PSI Twins (Lucas + Ness)
Here's where things get tricky. I feel like lucas and ness are pretty hard to get used to.
You can still abuse DF, its actually pretty hard to get good heals off without getting punished.
Ness is floaty, so some combos don't work on him, plus he hits pretty hard. You can NL cancel
to mitigate mid-range PK fire pressure, but his fair is pretty fast so he can come in with
DJC shenanigans and get in on you. the biggest thing for me in this matchup is he can edge guard
you with PK Flash. A lot of times its a guaranteed kill at 80%, and depending on how you recover,
he can make it really hard to avoid. If you NL, you can go through it, but I still die a lot to PK Flash
because sometimes its just not safe to use NL and he spikes you after anyway.
I still need to play a good Lucas, but he has some pretty dangerous moves in Usmash, Fsmash,
Magnet and Dair. He can kill you pretty early with a strong tech chase, and his pressure game is
better than the spacies I think. His recovery isn't very far, a lot like falco's. Try to place DF in the
way, if its big enough like (Medium) or (Large) it can beat his Up-B, it's kinda situational.
Same for Ness, I actually struggle a lot with how to punish Up-B, probably my weakest aspect
in the matchup so far.
Recently I've picked up Pikachu to deal with the PSI Twins and Marth.
I'm fairly comfortable in the rest of the matchups to stay as Zelda, those three just set me on edge.
The rest of the cast is pretty free against Zelda due to how fast they die to lightning kick(G&W/Puff), and how
laughably easy it is to spam them out with DF(Pikachu/Snake), or even Zelda's moves naturally doing well
against them (Pit).
There's my spiel.
Honestly, I feel even though she might have some trouble matchups, she is secretly top-tier.
she'll gain popularity when people realize she absolutely destroys a few characters that spacies have trouble with.
I would place her around the 8th spot, top ten at least for sure.
