Zelda's new tier list placement

[Brinzy]

Ike says hi. Free money ftw.

Dsmash says gtfo.

 

[Rykoshet]

I haven't actually been in a position with enough lag to die to Dsmash in 5 months. When you know only one move can kill you, you do your best to avoid the situations where that move is viable. That's why I find it so hard to land up tilt with snake.

On a completely serious note, ike pretty much was given free reign over low tiers. He doesnt get chain grabbed by bowser and actually has a chaingrab ON bowser. He beats Zelda rather reliably, ***** PT and the rest of the cast aside from maybe samus and with proper DI you don't die against samus until like 190-240.

 

[JigglyZelda003]

oh well this just means the only characters i can't use for low tier tournaments is shiek, peach, and Fox. lol

 

[Brinzy]

I haven't actually been in a position with enough lag to die to Dsmash in 5 months. When you know only one move can kill you, you do your best to avoid the situations where that move is viable. That's why I find it so hard to land up tilt with snake.

On a completely serious note, ike pretty much was given free reign over low tiers. He doesnt get chain grabbed by bowser and actually has a chaingrab ON bowser. He beats Zelda rather reliably, ***** PT and the rest of the cast aside from maybe samus and with proper DI you don't die against samus until like 190-240.

Been avoiding the dtilt/Dsmash setups (or just plain Dsmash) well, have you...

Ike probably does stand the best chances at low tier, though we'll let the wins do the talking, since low tiers tend to be a lot less about how good they are against everyone else and way, waaay more about the player. Kinda like a more balanced fighter. Also, I didn't know he beats Lucas.

 

[lil cj]

On a completely serious note, ike pretty much was given free reign over low tiers. He doesnt get chain grabbed by bowser and actually has a chaingrab ON bowser. He beats Zelda rather reliably, ***** PT and the rest of the cast aside from maybe samus and with proper DI you don't die against samus until like 190-240.

Ike reigning over low tiers??
Not so much

Zelda and Ike
are about even...both have very good kill power
Zelda just cant get hit to many times by Ike

And Ike definitely doesnt ****
Lucas or Mario either

Lucas>Ike
Mario>Ike

They can gimp Ike so easily

Im not hating on Ike or anything(im an Ike user myself)
but all because he is low tier now
doesnt mean he will dominate all the low tier characters

Lucas,Samus, Zelda,and Mario
have a good chance too

Also, I didn't know he beats Lucas.

He doesnt
The match up is 60-40
in Lucas' favor

This matchup has been debatable though
because some think its easier to counterpick Lucas than Ike

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Ike probably does stand the best chances at low tier, though we'll let the wins do the talking, since low tiers tend to be a lot less about how good they are against everyone else and way, waaay more about the player. Kinda like a more balanced fighter. Also, I didn't know he beats Lucas.

He either does, or he's even.

Lucas boards don't want to admit it, but it's true. His projectiles don't keep us back well enough, and up close we can really rack up the damage, better then they can. They have an easier time gimping us, but thats about it.

Against low tier, Ike has apparently on 4-6 D against Samus (which I disagree with, I think it's more Xyro being amazing then Samus's advantage...), and 45-55 D against Link, with Ness being somewhere between 45-55 and 55-45 (we all just say 5-5 to avoid arguments), and either 45-55 or 50-50 against Mario.

PT is the only other debated one, but they believe that Squirtle getting CG'd to walk-off fair, heavily outranged, heavily out powered, and being almost unable to land a lot of their attacks due to to the combination of the above is only a 4-6 D for Squirtle. >_>

 

[lil cj]

He either does, or he's even.

Lucas boards don't want to admit it, but it's true. His projectiles don't keep us back well enough, and up close we can really rack up the damage, better then they can. They have an easier time gimping us, but thats about it.

We have more than just gimping against Ike...
Lucas has a better ground game and more combos than Ike(nair,jab,dair)...so how can he rack up damage better?
And yes they are true combos...we have true dair combos on every character
Also our jab is just as fast as yours, if not faster
Please dont underestimate Lucas

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Grab Release fun.

Ground Release -> Jab. True combo.
Jab -> Grab. Off by one frame of being a true combo if Lucas jumps in between the jab and grab. I have yet to seen anyone avoid this.
Air Release -> Dash Attack. True combo

The damage racks up quickly, even if you air release every single time.

And I'm not underestimating Lucas. I've played against both a Lucas and a Ness. No, I don't remember which Lucas. It was my first time at a tournament when I faced the Lucas, so I was completely terrible at the game. The Ness was like, 6 months after that first tournament tournament. The Lucas player also played better then the Ness player in the overall tournaments, and in skill from what I saw against other players (The Lucas guy did surprisingly well against Hylian for example. Still loss, but did good.). Neither of them had ever faced an Ike before.

The Ness 0-Death'd me on his first stock. I closed it up by the end, but I still lost by a noticeable amount. No stupid mistakes on my part after my first stock.

The Lucas I would have had a good shot at beating if I hadn't SD'd by holding down while using Aether. Twice. Second time I was already as good as dead however, so it didn't make much of a difference.

I had more trouble against the Ness then the Lucas, despite the fact I faced the Lucas in my first tournament, and Ness much later.

Worse case for Ike, Ness has a 55-45 advantage. This means BEST case for Lucas is 50-50.


How does Zelda do against the other low tiers? (Is dragging this topic back towards Zelda)

 

[Brinzy]

Has an advantage on Bowser, loses to Ike, about even with PT "if he knows what he's doing", even with Mario, even with the motherboys, beats Yoshi, loses to Samus slightly, beats everyone else.

Probably second or third best character in a low tier tournament on paper. The fact that she isn't harshly outcamped like in the above tiers makes this a new game for Zelda, though.

 

[<π]

hows she do against link?

heh... the mama's boys.

 

[Brinzy]

Beats Link because he sucks at keeping Zelda away for long (and his projectiles are actually vulnerable to Nayru's at certain distances and situations). And really, if you can't keep Zelda away...


Plus, Dsmash.

Plus, somewhat even killing %s here, with Link losing more lives on recovery than Zelda.

Plus, loses up close.

 

[M@v]

Im really happy with Zelda's placement because, like i said, I can use her as my low tier main now ^_^.

 

[Rykoshet]

This whole "if ike gets gimped" crap is so early 2008 I'm about to puke. The ONLY character in the game that has frame advantage on ike to reliably gimp him is meta knight, and animation traps existing for game and watch (up B), marth (Fsmash and Dolphin slash, if you're still getting countered out of aether you should quit), and snake (C4 and Nades). If Ike got gimped by any other character it was due to either bad DI or poor decisions on the ike's part. I dont get reliably gimped by kirby, jigglypuff, dedede, marth, game and watch, snake (you can DI and tech his only recovery trap on Ike and most snakes dont even know how to reliably trap him), mario, bowser, zelda, squirtle, or charizard and all of them have a heavy "just gimp him early" game on ike except for snake.

The links don't even think they have the advantage on ike so I dunno where this 45-55D concept lives, ike spikes link out of every possible recovery option he has even with good DI and he goes off the side with dash attack and dies at around 45. It's not even close, it's like a 6-4 for ike if not better.

 

[MrEh]

Bowser actually can chaingrab Ike.


And grab release Jab is not a true combo with Ike. Anyone with an action that comes out in less then three frames can avoid it. Who has an action that comes out in less then 3 frames? Everyone.

Spoiler

Except Ness and Lucas. They suck.

 

[Rykoshet]

Grab release -> Jab -> Regrab is not the chaingrab ike has on bowser.

 

[MrEh]

Read what I said again. I wasn't talking about Ike chaingrabbing Bowser.


Ok, as a big joke, this is how viable Zelda is in a realistic tournament setting. Zelda's matchups are something like this...


Meta Knight 25-75
Snake 30-70
Wario 40-60
Falco 40-60
Diddy 40-60
Dedede 45-55
Marth 40-60
Game and Watch 30-70
Pikachu 40-60
Olimar 30-70
Average ratio is 36-64

36-64 is terrible. Now, let's average it out in accordance to how common these characters are in tournaments. (again, this is just my estimate)

MK 85%
Snake 14.99999%
Everyone Else 0.00001%
Average ratio is 25.650007-74.349993

That's right, Zelda's average matchup against the top ten is about 26-74.

ENJOY THOSE CRAPPY ODDS! HAHAHAHA!!!!!

 

[Rykoshet]

Ah okay, misread. Ike happens to have grab release to jab -> regrab on a number of characters too.

 

[-Mars-]

Finally they placed Zelda where she should have been from the start.

 

[SinkingHigher]

Up until a few months ago, I thought it was just that she hadn't been represented well, and that Zelda had potential to place at least top 5 in tournaments.

To be honest, though... Zelda is just pathetic. As a character, she's fun, but as a tournament player, she's just dreadful. I think she should have been a spot or two below her current standing.

Strange how things change.

I guess it's time to start learning Snake.

 

[Rion]

God. It's seeing crap like this that makes me wish I could be more competitive.

As demoralizing as it is to see Zelda only get worse and worse in the Smash scene, it does make me wanna work that much harder to improve my own Zelda.

I think the biggest frustration for me is how promising she was looking near the release of the game with so many things about her improved in some shape or form.

It was pretty hopeful.

And then after a while, people realized that she was basically the same as her melee counterpart: suffering from way too many glaring weaknesses that are too easily taken advantage of or were just blatantly obvious.

I'm pretty discouraged, but I'll keep trying!

 

[daisho]

Read what I said again. I wasn't talking about Ike chaingrabbing Bowser.


Ok, as a big joke, this is how viable Zelda is in a realistic tournament setting. Zelda's matchups are something like this...


Meta Knight 25-75
Snake 30-70
Wario 40-60
Falco 40-60
Diddy 40-60
Dedede 45-55
Marth 40-60
Game and Watch 30-70
Pikachu 40-60
Olimar 30-70
Average ratio is 36-64

36-64 is terrible. Now, let's average it out in accordance to how common these characters are in tournaments. (again, this is just my estimate)

MK 85%
Snake 14.99999%
Everyone Else 0.00001%
Average ratio is 25.650007-74.349993

That's right, Zelda's average matchup against the top ten is about 26-74.

ENJOY THOSE CRAPPY ODDS! HAHAHAHA!!!!!

Dude, where did you get that Zelda Vs. DDD is 60:40 DDD? Both boards say its 60:40 Zelda...

That being said, I don't really care about this since I only use Zelda for DDD (****ING PENGUIN!!!!) but my Main and Second went down a total of 8 spots...

 

[lil cj]

Who has an action that comes out in less then 3 frames? Everyone.

Except Ness and Lucas. They suck

They dont suck
Just misunderstood and have a longer grab release animation
than everyone else

Zelda doesnt suck either
Just limited

Why do you think almost every character sucks?
Some characters are not used alot in tournaments and have untapped potential

Lucas and Sheik are good examples

And look at Sonic people said he sucked now look at him
You shouldnt underestimate any character
even low tiers

How do you feel about your main Bowser...do you think he sucks too??

Read what I said again. I wasn't talking about Ike chaingrabbing Bowser.


Ok, as a big joke, this is how viable Zelda is in a realistic tournament setting. Zelda's matchups are something like this...


Meta Knight 25-75
Snake 30-70
Wario 40-60
Falco 40-60
Diddy 40-60
Dedede 45-55
Marth 40-60
Game and Watch 30-70
Pikachu 40-60
Olimar 30-70
Average ratio is 36-64

36-64 is terrible. Now, let's average it out in accordance to how common these characters are in tournaments. (again, this is just my estimate)

MK 85%
Snake 14.99999%
Everyone Else 0.00001%
Average ratio is 25.650007-74.349993

That's right, Zelda's average matchup against the top ten is about 26-74.

ENJOY THOSE CRAPPY ODDS! HAHAHAHA!!!!!

Ok...those numbers are terrible I agree
Some of those character you mentioned,
Zelda does pretty well against

Like Pikachu...Zelda can reflect his strongest kill move
and even stop his QACing with up and side smash

She does well against DDD
its easy to connect lightning kicks and dair spikes
And she cant get chain grabbed by him

She does ok against Wario too
I believe she has an infinite on him??

Diddy is a little difficult
but Zelda can reflect Diddy's main tool
his bananas

She does gets ***** by MK,Olimar, Falco, Marth, G&W, and Snake(to an extent...its easy to dair spike his recovery)

But for certain bad matchups
theres always Sheik to back her up

Thats whats great about Zelda
She doesnt have to go into battle alone
Sheik is always an option

So alone as a character
Zelda is decent

But with Sheik....their upper mid tier material

 

[Brinzy]

Zelda and Lucas are pretty bad. I don't understand why people think that the longer grab release animation doesn't hurt Lucas and Ness. Being limited is a BAD thing.

 

[<π]

I always thought ness and lucas were and still are very underestimated characters...

SO! I've been playing zelda successfully lately. She still is a horrible character though.

 

[<π]

This isn't the mama's boy forums... BUT!

ness and lucas have excelent tool to avoid getting grabbed. long disjointed forward and backward aerials and good aerial mobility. Their recoveryies are weak but easily comparable to fox and falco in in distance and start up and distance.
Lucas playing more like fox and obviously ness similar to falco.

the grab release stuff is a huge weakness yeah, but they have so many strong points...

 

[Brinzy]

Really, to make her good, you basically have to take her out of character.

If you want her to run fast, she can't be a princess.

If you want her to grab fast, she can't be a princess.

If you want her to attack fast, she can't be a princess.

If you want her kicks to hurt, you have to put some magical force in a specific spot to enhance her grace.

If you want her to not be broken, her B moves have to be toned down, which makes them suck.

If you want her to live longer, she needs to be shorter and heavier.

If you want her to do anything, you have to be someone else. As far as "Princess Zelda" goes, she's a very nicely designed character. She does not transfer into the world of Smash that well.

 

[Rickerdy-doo-da-day]

I'm not surprised Zelda moved down at all

Zelda moves like a brick in water - badly. It might look like everything is flowing all fine and dandy but a brick is a brick and not even all the oceans combined will change that (unless they erode the brick away to nothing...which wouldn't be much use since that'd be implying Zelda is even worse than where she already is)

She has pretty much zero approach options, horrible recovery and rubbish range. Really, the only thing going for her is her Smashes and D Tilt, all of which are pretty punishable

Still, I hate fighting her

 

[Dihan]

How's Zelda's camping game in the low tier game?

 

[Microbe]

Really, to make her good, you basically have to take her out of character.

If you want her to run fast, she can't be a princess.

If you want her to grab fast, she can't be a princess.

If you want her to attack fast, she can't be a princess.

If you want her kicks to hurt, you have to put some magical force in a specific spot to enhance her grace.

If you want her to not be broken, her B moves have to be toned down, which makes them suck.

If you want her to live longer, she needs to be shorter and heavier.

If you want her to do anything, you have to be someone else. As far as "Princess Zelda" goes, she's a very nicely designed character. She does not transfer into the world of Smash that well.

Excellent point here. Zelda is a chraracter that exudes grace, style and general awesomeness. I think this is the number one reason to play her. Unfortunately, you do not get style points when it comes to tier list placements >_>

 

[Sonic The Hedgedawg]

Really, to make her good, you basically have to take her out of character.

If you want her to run fast, she can't be a princess.

If you want her to grab fast, she can't be a princess.

If you want her to attack fast, she can't be a princess.

If you want her kicks to hurt, you have to put some magical force in a specific spot to enhance her grace.

If you want her to not be broken, her B moves have to be toned down, which makes them suck.

If you want her to live longer, she needs to be shorter and heavier.

If you want her to do anything, you have to be someone else. As far as "Princess Zelda" goes, she's a very nicely designed character. She does not transfer into the world of Smash that well.

peach pulls it off okay. Seriously though....

• she doesn't have to move FAST, but faster than lumbering powerhouses would be nice.
• She doesn't have to have light speed grabs, but her grab is ungodly slow
• She could attack quickly, but it'd need to be weak. Quick jabs are what's missing for her.
• There's still no reason that her Dair shouldn't sweetspot on the ground.
• There's still no reason she should be so helpless after farore's.
• She's a ****ing magic user: they are supposed to EXCELL with special attacks. There's no reason hers should be so bad.
• If her special attacks were beefed up more reasonably, she probably COULD be a good character. Seriously, Farore's being so easy to edgeguard, Din's being so bad at forcing an approach and nayru's being too lagy to reflect safely CRIPPLE Zelda. Improve all those things and she'd jump up quite a bit, and it wouldn't run contrary to her character.
• And if you couldn't DI out of her smashes, that'd help some.

 

[Half-Split Soul]

I love the fact that so many here are trying to prove that Zelda is either a very bad or not so bad character. To be honest, I couldn´t care less about her tier list placement other than using it as mindgame. It´s clearly obvious who are the best characters, tournament-wise, and how broken they are compared to the worse ones. It´s also obvious Zelda isn´t even nearly as good as MK or Snake or someone else real high, so anyone playing Zelda shouldn´t play her for any other reason than simply enjoying her playstyle or character. If you want to play only for a win just pick MK.

 

[JigglyZelda003]

Zelda doesnt suck either
Just limited

but being limited is bad : /

And look at Sonic people said he sucked now look at him

Sonic has teh mindgames.

She does ok against Wario too
I believe she has an infinite on him??

wrong princess : /

She does gets ***** by MK,Olimar, Falco, Marth, G&W, and Snake(to an extent...its easy to dair spike his recovery)

But for certain bad matchups
theres always Sheik to back her up

problem is sheik only does marginally better against who? she gets CG by falco, marth really outreachs her, she can approach and camp snake but thats it. and if you only main Zelda your sol. : /

 

[Brinzy]

Thanks, Half-Split, though I'm not sure if that's necessary.

jiggly, two things:

1) Zelda can infinite Wario, as far as I remember.

2) Sheik does good against Marth. Slight disadvantage really.

 

[n88]

I'm happy with a low-tier placement, because it's a useful mindgame, and that's about all it does. The tier list does not affect how good Zelda is. If she drops below Ganondorf, she will still do the same amount of damage, run at the same speed, etc.

For all people who say "Zelda (or another low-tier) isn't bad, they just (insert flaw here)."

Most of the low-mid tiers are very balanced characters. The characters at the top are not, and make the low characters look bad.

 

[Brinzy]

That was a very brilliant post. I like how you think.

 

[JigglyZelda003]

jiggly, two things:

1) Zelda can infinite Wario, as far as I remember.

2) Sheik does good against Marth. Slight disadvantage really.

she can? i thought best she got was grab release>LK. and we know about that grab.

 

[Brinzy]

The last time I tested it against a human and CPU, they couldn't get out, but I could be lying here and that may be after he double-jumps, so you just LK so it doesn't matter... maybe. I think you were right, as far as him still having his double-jump goes.

 

[Sonic The Hedgedawg]

she can? i thought best she got was grab release>LK. and we know about that grab.

O_O
you act as if that's a bad thing

 

[Brinzy]

When you put in perspective, an infinite is pretty much always better than a grab-release... unless infinites are banned.

 

[MrEh]

For all you guys who think that Zelda has an advantage on Dedede, she doesn't. It only seems that way at lower levels of play or against Dedede's who don't know the Zelda matchup.

How's Zelda's camping game in the low tier game?

She gets camped by everyone that shoots projectiles faster then herself.

she can? i thought best she got was grab release>LK. and we know about that grab.

Grab Release LK works. But combined with Zelda's terrible grab and Wario's camping, it's really hard to grab him. Plus, Wario beats Zelda pretty hard anyway.