Zelda's Overarching Weakness

[Downdraft]

It's debatable whether or not this should have been posted in the social, but I wanted it to receive proper attention. I rarely see Zelda's lack of ability to control or threaten space as a primary cause for her struggles.

Zelda struggles against Dash Dance and Wavedash camping largely since there's a void between the reach of her normals and Din's minimum set distance. She also struggles against characters with good projectiles such as Fox, Falco, Link, and Samus since she doesn't have a great way to counter the space those moves control with Din's or her movement. Zelda also struggles against disjoint since her opponent's moves cover more space than hers. Zelda struggles to return to the stage sometimes since aerial Farore's and D-air are slow on startup, plus neither hitbox trades favorably or threaten much space below her.

She previously could control space to an extent with 3.02 Din's, and Diamond Diving threatened the space below her. A single mine doesn't threaten much space and is easy to defuse. The return trail doesn't really control space well either, especially when its paths don't cover the space the opponent is travelling in. People have suggested that the minimum set distance should be reduced to 3.02 levels or better. Others have suggested that she be given improved basic mobility options such as a longer wavedash, a better dash dance, or higher air speed. All those recommendations address the problem of her inability to control space, but the issue would persist.

On another note, jab has been a contentious topic lately. Now, my idea for alleviating her problem with controlling space would be to give jab a travelling hitbox that would cover the space between her ground attacks and Din's minimum set distance. This could be accomplish two ways. Either the hitboxes themselves could simply move forwards or the move could be given a reasonable version of the Brawl- F-tilt magic trail. Here's a quote from the wiki, and I'm sure you can find footage somewhere.

Zelda's forward tilt now sends out a trail of magic that pushes opponents. Can be angled.

I'd also speed up jab from frame 11 to the average jab startup time to make it safer to throw out. If jab was changed via method 1, i.e. its hitboxes travel forward to cover the void between her ground attacks and minimum Din's, the attack would be fair since she still would have no followups on hit with the Sakurai angle (close or far). If the move were changed via method 2, i.e. reminiscent of Brawl- F-tilt, then she still would have no followups.

Jab's utility would increase dramatically while remaining balanced. It'd be a tool with no followups that simply would reduce the effectiveness of dash dance and wavedash camping Zelda. It would encourage characters that are reliant on superior mobility to commit to an attack. The new jab would also help versus characters with disjoint. With it's better startup and low cooldown, it'd also be a good tool in the neutral versus characters with disjoint.

Versus characters with projectiles, she would have to use her current means of approaching them. I'm wary of letting the new jab clank with projectiles as it would do too much, but perhaps another of her moves should have the ability to cancel out projectiles. LC Naryu's isn't good enough.

The argument about space control being her largest weakness and the idea for a better jab were both thought of recently so please suggest improvements on the suggestion or refute my claim that space control is her overarching weakness. Remember that having good mobility, projectiles, or disjoint are ways to effectively control space. Relative to the rest of the cast, Zelda is seriously lacking in all 3 departments, but that topic has been beaten to death and belongs in another thread.

 

[noobftw]

I've been thinking of many ways to buff zelda but not overdue it.
My friend and I have been talking about possibly removing the down b and making it an entirely different move.
What he suggested is that it would just be a set distance din's explosion that's pretty fast to cover the minimum din's distance. It'll make opponent respect and not dash dance (similar to your idea with the faster and more forward hitting jab) This would help with comboing as well as keeping the space near dins really strong. I think it's a good idea although thinking of how big the hitbox would be or the priority or making the move would be interesting.
I've had several. One being another type of din's or an arrow/laser projectile that will help her approach/spacing game but recently I thought of one crazy one that seems to make me think it could be better than the formers I thought of.
I wanted to make a shield type of move. Where it can take a hit and not damage zelda behind it. Essentially like the tree for villager in smash4 or modok's shield in UMVC3 or even a buffed version of zelda's down b in smash 4 where it doesn't charge and comes out faster and doesn't stay out as long . Since it can take a hit and keep zelda safe she can keep her slow speed but set up this shield move to allow her time to counter dash dancing and set up her dins even in more pressured situations.
Problem is this takes out zelda's down b and people would not like that. I think buffing her specials back a little bit adds more. Her moves in the air and smash attacks are very good. I love the idea to buff jab because committing with upsmash leaves you open if you miss. Having jab and ftilt together would be a great way to start combos better with your idea!

 

[Arcalyth]

Zelda has disjoint on all of her moves except dtilt, dsmash, dair, and usmash. What are you going on about? That's literally all but 4 of her moves.

Ftilt and dash attack both clank. If you're having problems using LC Nayru's against Link for example, you can just dash attack his boomerang. You can also kick them out of the air. LC Nayru's should be effective against everything except highly-angled projectiles like boomerangs, pills, or turnips. If you're having problems with linear projectiles... you're probably doing something really wrong.

Yes she does have a huge void between ftilt and Din's fire, but you can teleport to adjust where that void is, so that would be playing around your character's weaknesses. And yes, every character has weaknesses, including whoever you think is top tier.

Average jab speed is frame 2. Reducing Zelda's jab startup that far would be just plain asinine lol. Not for the amount of (ahem) disjoint it has, especially.

Perhaps you should consider how Din's Fire can augment Zelda's already great spacing tools, rather than considering it on its own. When there's a Din's behind the opponent and a Zelda in front of them, there isn't a whole lot they can do without getting punished. If you think she can't control space, try using ftilt more, as well as SH kick>waveland and SH kick>kick. Try using wavebounce Nayru's. Try teleporting lol. I really don't think you're saying a whole lot here.

Edit: Oh, for returning to the stage, try airdodge. Peach and Zelda have the best airdodges in the game.

 

[otheusrex]

no one is suggesting making her jab frame 2 0.O
Her jab is essentially a sword jab but without the amount of disjoint since her hand is vulnerable. if it were up to me, I'd make it match the slowest sword jab, which is link's at frame 6

 

[Downdraft]

Zelda has disjoint on all of her moves except dtilt, dsmash, dair, and usmash. What are you going on about? That's literally all but 4 of her moves.

Ftilt and dash attack both clank. If you're having problems using LC Nayru's against Link for example, you can just dash attack his boomerang. You can also kick them out of the air. LC Nayru's should be effective against everything except highly-angled projectiles like boomerangs, pills, or turnips. If you're having problems with linear projectiles... you're probably doing something really wrong.

Yes she does have a huge void between ftilt and Din's fire, but you can teleport to adjust where that void is, so that would be playing around your character's weaknesses. And yes, every character has weaknesses, including whoever you think is top tier.

Average jab speed is frame 2. Reducing Zelda's jab startup that far would be just plain asinine lol. Not for the amount of (ahem) disjoint it has, especially.

Perhaps you should consider how Din's Fire can augment Zelda's already great spacing tools, rather than considering it on its own. When there's a Din's behind the opponent and a Zelda in front of them, there isn't a whole lot they can do without getting punished. If you think she can't control space, try using ftilt more, as well as SH kick>waveland and SH kick>kick. Try using wavebounce Nayru's. Try teleporting lol. I really don't think you're saying a whole lot here.

Edit: Oh, for returning to the stage, try airdodge. Peach and Zelda have the best airdodges in the game.

We are not on the same page. How many frames are there between the time you press Up-B and disappear? Are you suggesting that Falcon, Falco, Fox, Marth, Roy, etc. couldn't punish the Farore's attempt? Even if the void could be reset, all the opponent has to do is react to her reappearance and either punish or get back into the void.

I didn't know the average jab was frame 2. I agree with Elf that frame 6 would be more reasonable with my proposed changes to jab, which you ignored. Regardless, the move would still have the same duration and IASA frames, thus no followups. I don't see the problem. The decrease on startup isn't even the main idea.

How does air dodge get you down when you're being U-air juggled by the characters that can keep Zelda above them with U-air?

 

[Magus420]

Look up just about any armada peach marth match and you'll see how dress tier airdodges can be used for getting past stuff (PM Zelda's is the best AD in either game because of her FF speed). Simple example is putting yourself above a lower floor/platform and mixing in ADing left/right+FFing to the higher ground. They can't u-air both as the AD covers a lot of horizontal distance at once, and the early FFability on their ADs allows landing faster. Good use of AD is important with these 2 characters.

 

[Arcalyth]

We are not on the same page. How many frames are there between the time you press Up-B and disappear? Are you suggesting that Falcon, Falco, Fox, Marth, Roy, etc. couldn't punish the Farore's attempt? Even if the void could be reset, all the opponent has to do is react to her reappearance and either punish or get back into the void.

I didn't know the average jab was frame 2. I agree with Elf that frame 6 would be more reasonable with my proposed changes to jab, which you ignored. Regardless, the move would still have the same duration and IASA frames, thus no followups. I don't see the problem. The decrease on startup isn't even the main idea.

How does air dodge get you down when you're being U-air juggled by the characters that can keep Zelda above them with U-air?

30 frames on FW, IIRC. You can also mixup with telecancel in place. If they're in range to punish the startup then you should be fine just dash dancing and spacing with kick/ftilt/jab. If they're outside that range then you get teleport and Din's for free. "In the void" you want to be trying to bait an approach with tricky movement, or closing the gap so that your opponent can't escape. Stagnating in neutral will get you killed.

I think designing a move specifically to cover flaws in neutral is not good design. A character with no weaknesses is hardly balanced. Even Fox with his great neutral has to use fundamental spacing to win.

Actually I think Brawl- implemented a jab like you're describing, you might be interested

 

[Downdraft]

Zelda would still have weaknesses with my proposed jab. She still would struggle against good projectiles and would still be forced to approach versus characters that don't have to approach Zelda. Also, poor mobility will always be a weakness holding her back from being Top Tier, so I don't think we'll have to worry about her becoming OP. There's no official or heavily agreed upon tier list for 3.6 Beta, but few would argue that a character with poor mobility that lacks the projectile or burst mobility to overcome that reliably is near the top. My change to jab would encourage characters with superior to go in rather than camp with fireballs, dash dancing, or wavedashing. She'd still have bad matchups, die early off the top, and be reliant on reads and patient play to succeed.

 

[otheusrex]

Zelda's AD is pretty good for getting out of jams, I'll admit.

The way I see it now, Zelda's weakness has to do with wars of attrition. Her defensive style works well when they try to come for you, but if the opponent is determined to brick wall you, patiently stay out range, and run away when they need to, there really isn't much she can do.

That's the spacing game of course and we think of it right now as a just thing for them to win in that scenario. But imagining that you had two marth's both determined to play as safely and carefully neutral as they can, it becomes easier to see that the game would break down if there weren't proper windows (chinks in the brick wall) for you to burst through and convert. Thus, even the safest and best equipped defensive character has to rely somewhat on reads to maintain their wall. Reads are the only way to marry the defensive vs offensive situations that occur between you and the opponent; they are the Design, The openings for you to punish provided by endlag, landing lag, or narrow hitbox coverage, as well as the offensive options your character has designed to quickly burst through their defenses, collectively is the medium used to fulfill that design, and those windows and tools are constantly under scrutiny: for ex, is this timing window too short, too long? Does this character have the right zone breakers to punish with a reasonable chance of success given a successful read? What constitutes a reasonable chance of success? and so forth...​

I feel that Zelda's issue is that she has weak burst options to break through defenses. This is all not necessarily subjective but arbitrary since you have to decide at several levels what's acceptably weak or strong on all the above aspects. Obviously some characters will have a harder time with either of these things. Zelda's supposed to be slow, but that still means she has to have some zone breaking tools good enough to fit in that reasonable margin of Brick-walling vs Zone-breaking. Deciding on the 'right' level of ability in this regard is tricky because it's both a matter of design philosophy and politics (getting everyone to agree on a standard), but the way I see PM is that she and any other characters in her predicament need slightly better approach options to take advantage of those opportunities*. Now even if you concede this, that still leaves deciding on how much and what to improve, which can and frequently has been a topic discussed elsewhere, but as a brief comment, I think it would be best to improve a few different moves, mainly normals┼, modestly rather than to look for any one single move to solve her problems. The latter has been done with both dins fire and nayrus love in various ways over the years and it either leads to something considered 'toxic,' or fair in itself but failling to help her with what she needs.

*to make an educated guess from my observations over the years, PM's improvements towards increasing the speed of gameplay has partially done this by mimicking a common, perhaps universal characteristic of melee top tiers: shield pressure. The aim for making things 'safer' on shield by lessening landing lag, increased shield stun , more disjoints, or better movement options to avoid being shield grabbed, purposefully favors offense over defense by weakening the foundation of defensive play: the shield. This also just makes attacking in general better, but also makes punish windows against optimal walling or zoning tighter and more difficult.
┼ For example, I think a simpler and more typical, yet not necessarily less effective way to address @ Downdraft 's concerns about the 'void', would just be to improve her dash attack to rush a little further faster, allowing her to bridge the space gap in a slightly tighter timeframe

 

[4tlas]

She needs a single crappy but passable sudden burst movement option. Teleport cancels give her situational quick movement to make up for her incredibly slow speed, and that's good. That option is gated behind Farore's long startup, so the opponent knows when but not where or how she will act.

A dash attack that goes further is a good idea. It can be used very suddenly from nearly any grounded state, but it is not a strong move nor is it remotely safe. The ability of such a move to barely break through walls would be enough even if it weren't powerful (hell, resetting to neutral but with the opponent further toward the ledge is better than nothing), and any power it does have is gated behind the extreme risk she takes by using the option.

I wouldn't want to improve her mobility in any flexible ways like reducing traction or increasing aerial mobility because that impacts her everywhere and makes her good matchups better as well. Placing the mobility on a move is a good way to make it situational and counterable. And mobility is what she needs, because she can make do in every scenario except a campy quick opponent, who can shut down her approaches on reaction.

 

[WhiteCrow]

Obviously y'all missing her actual overarching weakness:

She's too tall! It is so hard and committal to punish hard knock downs on platforms above you because everyone can getup attack yo behind before you can even reach them. If you want to get there fast you need to spend your double jump, which isn't all that great when they can get up attack on reaction to your jump. She can't short hop under platforms either which means you either have to teleport up and get punished or time your jump to rising aerial tech chase. And her up tilt isn't high enough to reach through most platforms! We can do it on Pokemon Stadium One, but not PS2.

This is honestly why I always pick FoD when I can so that I can squat under the platforms and up tilt people.
Her lightning kicks need another nerf, the heels make her too darn tall.

 

[4tlas]

Obviously y'all missing her actual overarching weakness:

She's too tall! It is so hard and committal to punish hard knock downs on platforms above you because everyone can getup attack yo behind before you can even reach them. If you want to get there fast you need to spend your double jump, which isn't all that great when they can get up attack on reaction to your jump. She can't short hop under platforms either which means you either have to teleport up and get punished or time your jump to rising aerial tech chase. And her up tilt isn't high enough to reach through most platforms! We can do it on Pokemon Stadium One, but not PS2.

This is honestly why I always pick FoD when I can so that I can squat under the platforms and up tilt people.
Her lightning kicks need another nerf, the heels make her too darn tall.

I don't have any problems punishing techchase on platforms. Her rising aerial techchase is AMAZING and beats every non-attack getup. The way to beat an attack getup is to wait patiently beneath them, and that beats every non-stand getup. It's rock paper scissors, which is totally fair, but Zelda has the advantage as she should for getting the other person into a techchase.

Granted some characters can literally cover everything...but this isn't a weakness. It's just not OP like everyone else =P