Zelda's Personal Matchup Thread

[#HBC | Scary]

Forgive me, I just think that they are much better than other representatives of their character. A little bias. I suppose I'll work on that.

 

[MechaWave]

Zelda's glide toss is an amazing approach.

If they've never seen it before, Glide toss > sliding d-smash/u-smash is so lol.

imo anyway

I've only gotten backwards glide toss to do the long slide for Zelda. The other directions I receive little distance.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

Well it's however you see it to be honest.

I just find that ZSS' tilts are good setups for her aerial game. Her tilts themselves aren't that good. I don't look into frames and stuff but I"m sure the game on paper is quite different than the real thing. ZSS's Dsmash is like... a keep away attack and just wait until it hits and stuns you. You're probably gonna start feeling differently about her Dsmash. Sure it's slow, but it strikes fear into many opponents.

I don't want to discourage you or anything I want to flush out the discussion more than well X character has Y move of Zelda there for the MU is -1337. Instead I'd rather discuss what the options are what Zelda needs to watch out for and how she can handle Y move (if she can handle it).

 

[Alacion]

Glide Toss to Dsmash is amazing... although that's usually only when I play Wario.

I don't want to discourage you or anything I want to flush out the discussion more than well X character has Y move of Zelda there for the MU is -1337. Instead I'd rather discuss what the options are what Zelda needs to watch out for and how she can handle Y move (if she can handle it).

Lol, it's all good. For options, I guess take advantage of the lag from Side B, Dsmash and her lolgrab. Keeping ZSS directly above Zelda is good too since her Dair is kind of bad and Zelda loves when people are above her.

Zelda can't handle many of ZSS' moves. I know you hate it but power shielding is probably the only way I can imagine that works against ZSS' ground game. Pressure her sheild as well since ZSS doesn't have many OoS options.

I honestly think ZSS shuts down many of Zelda's options and that ZSS is one of Zelda's worst matchups.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

What does ZSS do to be able to shut down most of Zelda's options? One of her worst MU's really? I don't see that in the least.

 

[Alacion]

I kinda said it earlier. Like how approaching ZSS is difficult because of her B, Side B, and Down Smash without power shielding. Many of her other moves send Zelda to the air where ZSS' high powered aerials and disjoints can make quick work out of Zelda.

Zelda's pretty bad in the air and the fact that she's tall, light, and floaty gives ZSS a huge advantage for her air game.

 

[KuroganeHammer]

Pro tips for this matchup:

D-smash is safe on shield only if it's charged.

C-stick d-smash is -4 frames iirc.

Most ZSS's will dtilt after a shielded d-smash.

Plasma Wire is bad. They'll only ever use retreating ones.

They will never f-smash.

You can DI into to ground when you get d-smashed and they hit you out of it with bair.

FOR HEAVENS SAKE DO NOT GET D-SMASHED OFFSTAGE

It leads to footstool > edge hog. And you will die.

Her up air is good.

But in saying that, she's light and gets KO'd fast.

Really fast.

 

[MechaWave]

Well Zelda usually loses a first stock if the Zamus can combo all their suit pieces.

 

[KuroganeHammer]

Alternatively you can try to catch them and chuck em off the edge.

But yeah, armor pieces are annoying. Keep far away at the beginning of the match. Don't chuck em back if she just stands there jabbing, because they'll clank and she'll get them back.

 

[Fluttershy]

Lucario is up

 

[Alacion]

Dunno much about this match up. He's pretty tall and floaty. On the other hand he is heavy.

Lucario can juggle Zelda with utilt. Lucario's dtilt is really good but I think Zelda's Usmash is a good counter. The aura shouldn't be too much of a concern because Zelda kills pretty early. Also, watch out for the grabs. Lucario has a fast pummel to clean out his attack queue and always expect a F-throw Zelda's at high percent.

Like I said, I dunno much about this matchup but I don't think Zelda struggles too much. I'd say -1.5 if that's allowed and if not, I'd lean towards -2 because it's Zelda.

 

[#HBC | Scary]

This MU sucks so much! I find it really hard due to his ability to juggle us and corner us on the ledge so we cannot get back on the stage. Also, even though we can kill very well, most of our power is impractical in this MU since he can get out of Usmash somewhat easy (from experience) and Fsmash. Unless we get fresh kicks around killing time, he is definitely going to live for a while. Dsmashing him offstage is really good for us because we can place good pressure on him with threats of a kick or even Dair. It's just really hard weaving around his super awesome hitboxes but it can be done; just incredibly hard.

-2 for me but closer to the in between of -2/-3 vs. just -2.

 

[JigglyZelda003]

so Lucario has finally arrived....

-****ing2

Lucario is extremely annoying to fight because he can camp Zelda w/ AS and wall her w/ Fsmash, Ftilt, or Fair. even if you manage to get close to Lucario and damage him you'll just end up chasing him again after you knock him away w/ something. despite being floaty he's somewhat heavy and he gets stronger the more damage we do to him meaning if you havent killed him by 150% and your over 100% your in death range. OoS usmash can't punish his perfectly spaced Dair and we can't fight him well in the air because he outspeeds us. idk if his Dair outranges Uair. his pummel as stated above is really fast and his grab range is good, so any bad spacing could mean your getting grabbed.

honestly i would always expect a Fsmash whenever you are in range because of its IASA frames Luc has little to lose if you block his Fsmash.

some things Zelda can do though is....
Dtilt can cancel quick shot AS until he's over 70% i believe. so if your fighting a dedicated camper you can walk and Dtilt AS until your within dash grab range at least.

you can shorthop over his Fsmash and Nair him. it requires really good spacing, but it can be a way in if you can't beat him to his Fsmash first w/ a Dash attack, dsmash, or Dtilt.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

Guys really ? This much like the ZSS MU I don't see how we lose this one so can you guys please go into a bit more detail because quite frankly I'm not seeing it.

 

[Alacion]

^Wow, it's that bad? There are no Lucarios in my area and I've been thinking about using him as a secondary because of that.

Should we focus on recovering back to the stage instead of the ledge then? I'm thinking Nayru's techs would be helpful to keep his Aura Sphere away while recovering too.

@AL: Zelda is second worst for a reason. I love your optimism though. I did say watch out for the grabs because of what Lucario can do once he grabs you... but like your data says the grab itself isn't too great.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

Since someone stated lucario had good grab range I thought I'd just list the grab range of non tether characters.

13. King Dedede 6
14. Charizard 5.5
15. Zelda 5.3
16. Donkey Kong 5.1
17. Squirtle 5
18. Marth, Diddy Kong, Snake 4.75
21. Kirby, R.O.B. 4.5
23. Peach, Fox, Falco, Ness 4.25
27. Wario 4.1
28. Bowser, Pit, Meta Knight, Jigglypuff, Ike, Sonic 4
34. Pikachu, Sheik 3.9
36. Lucario 3.75
37. Wolf, Ice Climbers, Mario, Luigi, Mr. Game & Watch 3.5
42. Captain Falcon 3.25
43. Ganondorf 2.75


here's the tether's

1. Olimar's Blue Pikmin 10.1
2. Olimar's White Pikmin 10.0
3. Zero Suit Samus, Olimar's Red Pikmin 9.75
5. Olimar's Yellow Pikmin 9.6
6. Samus 9.2- 9.4
7. Link 8.25
8. Olimar's Purple Pikmin 7.5
9. Lucas 7.25
10. Toon Link 7
11. Yoshi 6.75
12. Ivysaur 6.1

I don't bother with the tier list it really doesn't make any sense to me why or how they move characters. It's whimsical at best. Results/ MU/ flavor of the month apparently decide the tier list. He really shouldn't have any follow ups after his grabs. Maybe on some other characters but not on Zelda.

 

[Alacion]

Hm... I wouldn't go as far as to say the Tier List is whimsy. It's a pretty good reference in my opinion (obviously not perfect, and there will always be varying opinions).

Well once you've been grabbed, Lucario can pummel very quickly making his moves fresh again and his F-throw (typo'd that earlier) can kill at high percents.

 

[#HBC | Scary]

@AL: For the ZSS MU, she is like a vertical version of Wario, and our biggest weakness is being juggled. ZSS takes full advantage of our biggest problem and on top of that, if she gets a lead, she can dictate almost everything we're going to to do. I may not agree with the -3 given but I feel exactly like I do with the Lucario MU in saying that it's an in between for me (-2/-3). Also playing Nick Riddle sways me to believe that it's incredibly bad. If she constantly uses her mobility and pressures us in the air, we could be dead before we get back to the ground. Dead serious about that from experience. The biggest reason to me that it isn't -3 is her lifespan. If we get in, we can get good damage with our Dtilts and we can also kill early against her. Like, really early. Our power keeps this from -3 imo.

For Lucario, it's just hard man. He has a follow up out of Uthrow if I'm not mistaken but the problem is that his hitboxes are even dumber than ours! We can only get consistent kills with good reads and even some offstage pressure if again, we make good reads. We have no black & white moves that make this better for us, or no gimmicks against him, we just have to outplay him hard. I will add, if you have Luc's Dair hit your shield, we can hit with Bair so maybe there's something we can do. Lucario just makes things very difficult because he can zone us extremely well. His aerial mobility is also very good so he can bait and weave fairly well.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

Hm... I wouldn't go as far as to say the Tier List is whimsy. It's a pretty good reference in my opinion (obviously not perfect, and there will always be varying opinions).

Well once you've been grabbed, Lucario can pummel very quickly making his moves fresh again and his F-throw (typo'd that earlier) can kill at high percents.

I don't have a problem with people saying his throw are good I have a problem when people lay claims to his throw range being good.

Whether he refreshes his moves are not don't matter considering how poor his kill moves are and if you do happen to get hit by it then that's on you. Lucario struggles to kill even a light character like Zelda his kill moves are slow and dependent on how high his percentage is. Zelda can kill him rather early. Both characters can harass each other while off stage his ground game isn't nothing to speak of not when his fastest tilt is 5 frames (utilt) dtilt (9 frames) and ftilt (12 frames).

So god forbid I don't fall over this character and his supposed options when in reality his tools aren't much better than Zelda's.

 

[#HBC | Scary]

It isn't the fact that he can't kill because he his moves are slow, it's that he can keep us away and constantly pester us. It is so annoying!

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

@AL: For the ZSS MU, she is like a vertical version of Wario, and our biggest weakness is being juggled. ZSS takes full advantage of our biggest problem and on top of that, if she gets a lead, she can dictate almost everything we're going to to do. I may not agree with the -3 given but I feel exactly like I do with the Lucario MU in saying that it's an in between for me (-2/-3). Also playing Nick Riddle sways me to believe that it's incredibly bad. If she constantly uses her mobility and pressures us in the air, we could be dead before we get back to the ground. Dead serious about that from experience. The biggest reason to me that it isn't -3 is her lifespan. If we get in, we can get good damage with our Dtilts and we can also kill early against her. Like, really early. Our power keeps this from -3 imo.

ZSS has the same trouble that Zelda has and the weakness that ZSS has can be exploited by Zelda with her Nair. Both characters has trouble when someone is below them and applying pressure. With Zelda though I feel as though she can take more Advantage of ZSS's weakness With Usmash Utilt nair and sometimes uair. I believe the ZSS MU depends on how you approach but yeah if the ZSS juggles you and does whatever she wants during the match you're going to have a hard time. But you have a pulse and your hands are on the controller just as well and you can take advantage of that characters weak point just as easily as they can take advantage of yours.

For Lucario, it's just hard man. He has a follow up out of Uthrow if I'm not mistaken but the problem is that his hitboxes are even dumber than ours! We can only get consistent kills with good reads and even some offstage pressure if again, we make good reads. We have no black & white moves that make this better for us, or no gimmicks against him, we just have to outplay him hard. I will add, if you have Luc's Dair hit your shield, we can hit with Bair so maybe there's something we can do. Lucario just makes things very difficult because he can zone us extremely well. His aerial mobility is also very good so he can bait and weave fairly well.

So is Zelda easy for Lucario ? Both characters have long range moves and some moves with a lot of start up. So if we can punish Lucario OoS with Bair....what's his punish on us? You do know that lucario's best OOS options is dair right ? Speaking of off stage pressure ? What about Zelda's vs Lucario ? Surely he isn't free to recover at will I don't think any character outside of MK is free to recover vs Zelda. You get him off stage and you make him pay whether it's din's or dair. Then you ledgehog him then you make him eat a fair sweet spotted when he lands on the stage. Once again I feel as though you're looking far too much at Zelda's weakness and not pay attention to another character and their weakness that Zelda can exploit.

I don't think Zelda needs to out play him hard at all. She just needs one or two good reads and some hard punishes and she's in there.

It isn't the fact that he can't kill because he his moves are slow, it's that he can keep us away and constantly pester us. It is so annoying!

You only get pestered if you allow the opponent to pester you as long as you're spacing properly you can keep him at a really good distance where his options are no better than yours. Hell it's not like he even has a good like jab like falco ( 6 frame jab ). Play patent play smart looking for openings expose his weakness's.

Oh yeah I just remembered dtilt and how it clashes with all of his ground moves and is fastest than all of his ground moves except for utilt they're the same speed. So I'm still not seeing how this MU is -2 for us.

 

[KuroganeHammer]

ZSS isn't -3. Her best approach is up-air, dsmash and bair, and they're all pretty mediocre.

DI as far away from Zamus if she dtilts, uptilts, or up air's you or you'll get juggled.

Lucario's -2. Forces an approach with Aura Sphere, but has an atrocious recovery. Knock him offstage and edgeguard with anything. Easier said than done, of course.

F-smash is dumb, but slow to start up (BUT THOSE IASA FRAMES WTF SAKURAI?!) so it's not worth trying to punish unless it's badly spaced.

Edit: @Almostlegendary;

Our moves are just as slow as his, and lack range. Aura has transcendence btw, so it trades with dtilt.

Not to mention once he's at 100% or more, he starts killing us at 80-90%.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

ZSS isn't -3. Her best approach is up-air, dsmash and bair, and they're all pretty mediocre.

DI as far away from Zamus if she dtilts, uptilts, or up air's you or you'll get juggled.

Lucario's -2. Forces an approach with Aura Sphere, but has an atrocious recovery. Knock him offstage and edgeguard with anything. Easier said than done, of course.

F-smash is dumb, but slow to start up (BUT THOSE IASA FRAMES WTF SAKURAI?!) so it's not worth trying to punish unless it's badly spaced.

Edit: @Almostlegendary;

Our moves are just as slow as his, and lack range. Aura has transcendence btw, so it trades with dtilt.

Not to mention once he's at 100% or more, he starts killing us at 80-90%.

His range is longer than ours but I'm not sure if I'd say Zelda is lacking in the range department. However, some of our moves are faster than his. So it's up to us Zelda players to one find the right range to be in to most effectively uses our tools and two use the speed of our moves to be his.

Also I'd like to point out while his moves aren't worlds above ours some how same way I'm supposed to believe that that his moves are god like. His fastest ground move is 5 frames ours is 4 frames his most ranged attack is his fsmash which is 22 frames ours is 17 but we don't have the range ftilt are both 12 frames I believe His dtilt is 9 frames ours is 5 frames. Learn to use the options Zelda has in order to play the MU. I'm tired of hearing how bad of a character Zelda is and how she doesn't keep up with anyone. When character X has similar moves yet he supposedly wrecks Zelda.

Also I could be mistaken but I don't believe Lucario can punish Zelda's fsmash either.

One more thing I'd really wish you'd guys would stop saying that AS forces you to approach cuz it doesn't.

Everything I got about dtilt was from this thread.

http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?p=8518034#post8518034

What in the hell did lucario do to kill you on 90?

 

[JigglyZelda003]

One more thing I'd really wish you'd guys would stop saying that AS forces you to approach cuz it doesn't.

so if we don't have percent lead, what do we do then? Din's isn't the best counter camp option and he can attempt to play reflector baiting.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

so if we don't have percent lead, what do we do then? Din's isn't the best counter camp option and he can attempt to play reflector baiting.

That's different though the reason you're approaching now is because you lost the lead not because AS forced you to approach.

 

[#HBC | Scary]

I dunno AL, I can see all the points you are making I definitely can, but in practice this MU is hard. That's the only way I can put it. Just my opinion.

 

[JigglyZelda003]

That's different though the reason you're approaching now is because you lost the lead not because AS forced you to approach.

not really....at "GO!" Lucario is probably gonna space to camp. how do we gain lead if both parties are at 0% or even percent?

I dunno AL, I can see all the points you are making I definitely can, but in practice this MU is hard. That's the only way I can put it. Just my opinion.

thats how i feel.

 

[KuroganeHammer]

His range is longer than ours but I'm not sure if I'd say Zelda is lacking in the range department. However, some of our moves are faster than his. So it's up to us Zelda players to one find the right range to be in to most effectively uses our tools and two use the speed of our moves to be his.

Also I'd like to point out while his moves aren't worlds above ours some how same way I'm supposed to believe that that his moves are god like. His fastest ground move is 5 frames ours is 4 frames his most ranged attack is his fsmash which is 22 frames ours is 17 but we don't have the range ftilt are both 12 frames I believe His dtilt is 9 frames ours is 5 frames. Learn to use the options Zelda has in order to play the MU. I'm tired of hearing how bad of a character Zelda is and how she doesn't keep up with anyone. When character X has similar moves yet he supposedly wrecks Zelda.

Also I could be mistaken but I don't believe Lucario can punish Zelda's fsmash either.

One more thing I'd really wish you'd guys would stop saying that AS forces you to approach cuz it doesn't.

Everything I got about dtilt was from this thread.

http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?p=8518034#post8518034

What in the hell did lucario do to kill you on 90?

Zelda doesn't lack in the range department, but she does lack in the disjointed department.

At max range, Lucario's f-smash disjoint will beat out Zelda's f-smash disjoint.

About that dtilt clanking thread, it's probably because it's from 2009. I dunno if Lucario users (or anyone else) realised that the Aura actually has transcendent priority.

Also, I'm pretty sure Lucario's f-smash kills us at about 90% when he's over 100%.

Remember the aura bonus? Yeah that. lawl

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

I dunno AL, I can see all the points you are making I definitely can, but in practice this MU is hard. That's the only way I can put it. Just my opinion.

I'm not saying it's easy though. What i'm suggesting is that Zelda's tools compared to in this care Lucario I don't see exactly where Zelda loses the MU. One of Lucario's biggest strength's is totally negated because of Zelda's KO power. So we should be killing him a lot sooner than he's killing us.

Then we have to ask ourselves what is Lucario does that presents a problem for us. His aerials aren't much better than Zelda's if they are better. His recovery is extremel vulnerable to edgehogging. His tilts aren't better than Zelda's (i'll take Zelda's dtilt > his utilt). The only he really has on her is jab and grab speed which is mitigated by the fact that his jab is slow and his grab range is poor.

I'm not trying to take anything from Lucario as a character nor am I suggesting that Zelda rolls over Lucario. What I do question is what makes this MU so terrible for Zelda. I think if we question what these characters do learn more about the other character maybe we'll begin to see that every MU isn't a negative.

 

[mountain_tiger]

Land a lightning kick and the MU becomes almost even lol.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

I still haven't read anything which leads me to believe that Zelda is at a disadvantage in this MU =/.

 

[Sonic The Hedgedawg]

I still haven't read anything which leads me to believe that Zelda is at a disadvantage in this MU =/.

his attacks are safer, he's harder to kill, his air game runs circles around ours, we have no safe approaches, he outcamps us . . .

 

[phi1ny3]

Okay, so I'm looking up random Zelda tidbits on the Sheik MU when I run into this lol.

-Here's the deal, Lucario's jab, while being slow, has a significant range factor to it (it's pretty much tiltworthy), and gets all sorts of good setups just from his mixups. Zelda has punishes, that much is true, but Lucario is really good at juggling, and Zelda's poor options exacerbate this. Lucario's aerials last for a really long time and string into each other pretty effectively, which eliminates Zelda's probably best escape, the air dodge.

-Lucario's moveset isn't about "startup speed". If it were, he'd probably be a lot better than he is already (I almost think this was intentional, since lucario at high percents already is pretty nasty enough). He's about disjoints, option coverage (lingering hitboxes), and low cooldown.

-What most don't know about Lucario is that his upB, while poor, is often offset by some good tools to keep him alive offstage. DI is very important to lucario in this way, since recovering from higher up means he has a lot more to work with. Being 5th floatiest in the game is actually a good thing in this situation, when coupled with a dair stall, decent aerials to ward off an attack from non marth/MK edgeguarders, and AS to help get a person off the ledge. Many times, lucario doesn't even need to upB when he has his double jump.

Now let's look at when the opposite is in effect. Zelda's offstage, what do you do? Most of your aerials don't outrange ours, or keep us effectively off of you, and the ones that do (nair, mayb uair) take so much time they usually bring you down below, a bad position. Lucario has a WoP that works pretty well on characters with linear recoveries like this, not to mention he has a great bait w/ AS whether you choose to jump, AD or reflect it, it's so slow that it usually just means the net result becomes you losing height, or have now lost more options. Let's not forget, Zelda's recovery is equally as laggy on landing onstage (try to land it in that picture perfect horizontal line without getting AS'd/baired/ledgehop nair/uair'd, I dare you), and can be prone to as much punishment (ledgehop AS, anyone?). Oh, maybe you can use sideB to stop his edge hog -> ledgehop invinci-nair edgeguard, oh wait, you die if you do that. Oh, you have maybe naryu's to help give breathing room, but naryu's is very laggy, if it weren't for how it slows your fall, it would practically put you in a horrible position every time (or kill you). Okay, how about when both people might end up getting on the ledge? What can zelda do against fsmash/AS coverage? She ledgejumps? AS shield cancel -> uair/fair strings. roll? ASC -> aerial covers that, and utilt allows for an easy answer after fsmash since it ends so quickly. Let's see, attack, getup, or those predictable ledgehop AD/naryu shenanigans? Outspace it, then blast!

Zelda's usmash in its own right does cover a lot of lucario's options, but you need to get closer to use that, prone for lucario's long <100% getup attack, ledgehop -> frame 1 FP, or for style points, ledgehop double team. fsmash is a good cover for the getups/laggy roll, but you can't cover a ledgejump as easily with that.

Another little known tidbit, Lucario has a lagless landing animation where he doesn't bounce. This allows him to add some lenience for if he has to use it (which because of a clear lack of any real offstage pressure from Zelda, can manage easily if he really does have to ever use it in this MU). He also has a bounce where if you aim it (like what wolf's do with their flash-step sideB) it gets you across really far away.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YqyRnFHlSQ

Another option, although not as reliable with smart edgeguarders, is his wallcling out of upB. This alone is the reason lucarios love frigate as a counterpick (every ledge comes with a wall, in fact, this gimmick allows him to recover on the right side of the first transformation much more easily than most other characters with better recoveries, allowing him to abuse the offstage game to a larger extent than most on that side).

About the kill scenario, let's see... How many setups can you get for your fsmash? It think the only legitimate one comes from if you try to outspace ours or catching our landing. Lucario's AS is pretty much a stuffer extraordinaire, any whiff or landing option that isn't reflector and you're going to feel it (similar with lucario's fsmash). btw, AS from charge stance comes out on frame 8 (it's firing from neutral that's slow), and the charge stance allows you to shield cancel into aerials very easily, it's simply a very hard thing to predict from a good lucario when he's using all these options.

-It's not about raw disjoint entirely, it's about how they come into play. As long as Lucario doesn't run into a sleeper usmash or hard read LK/uair, he's generally going to outlive Zelda. usmash might've been a boon back in 08/09 when lucarios daired all the time, but now with better knowledge of dair spacing, b-reversals, and FF frame 1 FP, Lucario's landing options have become much better.

+2 isn't terrible lol. Lucario get a lot of +2/-2, and they're all very doable MUs. It's part of the reason I have pocket ICs/Sheik, I like having harder counter MUs so I don't have to think about things.

I'm not saying it's easy though. What i'm suggesting is that Zelda's tools compared to in this care Lucario I don't see exactly where Zelda loses the MU. One of Lucario's biggest strength's is totally negated because of Zelda's KO power. So we should be killing him a lot sooner than he's killing us.

Then we have to ask ourselves what is Lucario does that presents a problem for us. His aerials aren't much better than Zelda's if they are better. His recovery is extremel vulnerable to edgehogging. His tilts aren't better than Zelda's (i'll take Zelda's dtilt > his utilt). The only he really has on her is jab and grab speed which is mitigated by the fact that his jab is slow and his grab range is poor.

I'm not trying to take anything from Lucario as a character nor am I suggesting that Zelda rolls over Lucario. What I do question is what makes this MU so terrible for Zelda. I think if we question what these characters do learn more about the other character maybe we'll begin to see that every MU isn't a negative.

I can equally point this back, the moment you said "his aerials aren't that much better if they are better than Zelda's". Let's see, one of these characters has a frame 4 move that stops AD, has a humongous hitbox below him, stalls, rises out of hitstun, has little landing lag, and does 11-22% (decent -> incredible damage whether at low or high aura), one of them, while a little slower than your average zoning aerial, is pretty safe on shield especially when fullhopped, lasts 14 frames, and when it connects, usually follows into another aerial, can be used to space or approach, and has less ending lag than most traditional spacers (although admittedly laggy). Meanwhile, we have an average gtfo aerial with no really good range, several aerials that are only good for situational punishment (although to their credit, sting hard when it happens), and a laggy, non-trappable aerial (can you do cool stuff like our character's uair (which btw, kills pretty well if you don't respect it) -> dair/FF AS? No) Need I go on?

You are equally ignoring the strengths of another character, while ignoring the limits of your own, cherrypicking scenarios where your character would find a good shot at doing something. Zelda's best tools are okay, and only because they are good at OPTIMUM, or against an opponent that doesn't know how to deal with her. When things aren't going her way, they're reduced to about as good as the rest of her moveset, oozing with promise, but virtually useless. Not to mention, when you have pidgeonholed options for one specific scenario (dtilt when you catch the opponent or on crossup, for example), it becomes really easy to eliminate (Melee Pichu, anyone? More accurately "I main uair"). Zelda's got good damage racking on Lucario offstage, and some kill threats that stop him from completely countering her, but if you think for a moment the MU is even close to even (at top level mind you, not "shadowrollwififsmashdairmaster3000" level), you are sadly mistaken.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nc_LIR5ExIU&feature=related

 

[Fuujin]

Glide Toss to Dsmash is amazing... although that's usually only when I play Wario.

I'm almost 100% guaranteed glide toss to sweet spotted b-air is a guranteed combo on fatties with a banana.

Though it's only pretty much applicable in doubles .

ZSS is really bad, I dunno if I would call it one of her worse(because let's be frank, she has like at least 6 other match ups that are just as bad).
I would give it like -3.
Lucario -3 as well :/

Guys really ? This much like the ZSS MU I don't see how we lose this one so can you guys please go into a bit more detail because quite frankly I'm not seeing it.

....not sure if serious.

@AL: For the ZSS MU, she is like a vertical version of Wario, and our biggest weakness is being juggled. ZSS takes full advantage of our biggest problem and on top of that, if she gets a lead, she can dictate almost everything we're going to to do. I may not agree with the -3 given but I feel exactly like I do with the Lucario MU in saying that it's an in between for me (-2/-3). Also playing Nick Riddle sways me to believe that it's incredibly bad. If she constantly uses her mobility and pressures us in the air, we could be dead before we get back to the ground. Dead serious about that from experience. The biggest reason to me that it isn't -3 is her lifespan. If we get in, we can get good damage with our Dtilts and we can also kill early against her. Like, really early. Our power keeps this from -3 imo.

For Lucario, it's just hard man. He has a follow up out of Uthrow if I'm not mistaken but the problem is that his hitboxes are even dumber than ours! We can only get consistent kills with good reads and even some offstage pressure if again, we make good reads. We have no black & white moves that make this better for us, or no gimmicks against him, we just have to outplay him hard. I will add, if you have Luc's Dair hit your shield, we can hit with Bair so maybe there's something we can do. Lucario just makes things very difficult because he can zone us extremely well. His aerial mobility is also very good so he can bait and weave fairly well.

Scary being logical and not over estimating Zelda once again.
what is this I don't even...

ZSS isn't -3. Her best approach is up-air, dsmash and bair, and they're all pretty mediocre.

up-air, dsmash and bair,
they're all pretty mediocre.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

Okay, so I'm looking up random Zelda tidbits on the Sheik MU when I run into this lol.

-Here's the deal, Lucario's jab, while being slow, has a significant range factor to it (it's pretty much tiltworthy), and gets all sorts of good setups just from his mixups. Zelda has punishes, that much is true, but Lucario is really good at juggling, and Zelda's poor options exacerbate this. Lucario's aerials last for a really long time and string into each other pretty effectively, which eliminates Zelda's probably best escape, the air dodge.

So what you're telling me is that Lucario's using their jab as a spacing tool ? I don't want to hear it man. His jab can have solid range on it and be respectable that's cool. However, the range on Zelda's dtilt is equally if not more impressive with a faster start up and better follows ups. Yeah Lucario can string some of his aerials together....ok....You get fair fair nair or fair dair or something to that extent....I feel to see your point.

-Lucario's moveset isn't about "startup speed". If it were, he'd probably be a lot better than he is already (I almost think this was intentional, since lucario at high percents already is pretty nasty enough). He's about disjoints, option coverage (lingering hitboxes), and low cooldown.

This game is all about the start up of moves typically when a move starts up quick is good I say typically because despite ZSS quick jab it's still a poor move because of the properties of that move. Let's flip it and say would anyone care about Sheik's ftilt if it hit on frame 15 ? Of course that's an exaggeration but the point remains. Please tell me how it wouldn't matter if Lucario's fsmash hit on frame 12 instead of frame 22. If Lucario's moves don't have great start up that's even better because she tends to run into trouble against character who has quick moves with a lot of range (Marth & Snake come to mind).

-What most don't know about Lucario is that his upB, while poor, is often offset by some good tools to keep him alive offstage. DI is very important to lucario in this way, since recovering from higher up means he has a lot more to work with. Being 5th floatiest in the game is actually a good thing in this situation, when coupled with a dair stall, decent aerials to ward off an attack from non marth/MK edgeguarders, and AS to help get a person off the ledge. Many times, lucario doesn't even need to upB when he has his double jump.

If you're recovering high against Zelda that's typically what she wants all it takes from there is just a matter of a good read since Zelda is already at an advantageous position.

Now let's look at when the opposite is in effect. Zelda's offstage, what do you do? Most of your aerials don't outrange ours, or keep us effectively off of you, and the ones that do (nair, mayb uair) take so much time they usually bring you down below, a bad position. Lucario has a WoP that works pretty well on characters with linear recoveries like this, not to mention he has a great bait w/ AS whether you choose to AD or reflect it, it's so slow that it usually just means you lost height. Let's not forget, Zelda's recovery is equally as laggy on landing onstage, and can be prone to as much punishment (ledgehop AS, anyone?). Oh, maybe you can use sideB to stop his edge hog -> ledgehop invinci-nair edgeguard, oh wait, you die if you do that. Oh, you have maybe naryu's to help give breathing room, but naryu's is very laggy, if it weren't for how it slows your fall, it would practically put you in a horrible position every time (or kill you).

Our aerials may not out range yours but we can choose different spots when to use moves in order to get back. Much like Lucario Zelda will typically recover high and from then on it's a guessing game. A mistake from the Zelda can get her punished hard. A bad read from the Lucairo means she's safe.

Another little known tidbit, Lucario has a lagless landing animation where he doesn't bounce. This allows him to add some lenience for if he has to use it (which because of a clear lack of any real offstage pressure from Zelda, can manage easily if he really does have to ever use it in this MU). He also has a bounce where if you aim it (like what wolf's do with their flash-step sideB) it gets you across really far away.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YqyRnFHlSQ

Thanks for that i guess IDK how practical that is but I'll be on the look out for it. Is that the only angle lucario can land on the stage like that?

Another option, although not as reliable with smart edgeguarders, is his wallcling out of upB. This alone is the reason lucarios love frigate as a counterpick (every ledge comes with a wall, in fact, this gimmick allows him to recover on the right side of the first transformation much more easily than most other characters with better recoveries, allowing him to abuse the offstage game to a larger extent than most on that side).

Well Zelda also likes that stage however, because there isn't any ledge for characters I can typically punish with LK's or dtilt > dsmash or dsmash or w/e but it's typically very good for Zelda. When I don't have to worry about my opponent's up B doing any damage to me or knocking me out of a move then that's even better.

About the kill scenario, let's see... How many setups can you get for your fsmash? It think the only legitimate one comes from if you try to outspace ours or catching our landing. Lucario's AS is pretty much a stuffer extraordinaire, any whiff or landing option that isn't reflector and you're going to feel it (similar with lucario's fsmash). btw, AS from charge stance comes out on frame 8 (it's firing from neutral that's slow), and the charge stance allows you to shield cancel into aerials very easily, it's simply a very hard thing to predict from a good lucario when he's using all these options.

I also think Zelda can fsmash from a trip off of dtilt. Even if your AS comes out on frame 8 I have to be in a really bad position for me not to be able to respond to it.

-It's not about raw disjoint entirely, it's about how they come into play. As long as Lucario doesn't run into a sleeper usmash or hard read LK/uair, he's generally going to outlive Zelda. usmash might've been a boon back in 08/09 when lucarios daired all the time, but now with better knowledge of dair spacing, b-reversals, and FF frame 1 FP, Lucario's landing options have become much better.

I find it very hard to believe that Lucario will outlive Zelda. With out a hard read for Lucario he's not going to land a kill move and the fact that he already struggles to kill Zelda should be living until 150 a stock. Depending on the percentages I'll just throw out Utilt just for trade purposes.

+2 isn't terrible lol. Lucario get a lot of +2/-2, and they're all very doable MUs. It's part of the reason I have pocket ICs/Sheik, I like having harder counter MUs so I don't have to think about things.

+2/-2 isn't terrible however, I don't think this is a +2/-2. Must of what you've said is if Zelda can read Lucario she'll kill him early and punish him bad and put him in some bad spots. I don't really see what Lucario does to make this a +2 for him and I don't really care about his WoP or fair strings because those stop mattering after early percentages.

I can equally point this back, the moment you said "his aerials aren't that much better if they are better than Zelda's". Let's see, one of these characters has a frame 4 move that stops AD, has a humongous hitbox below him, stalls, rises out of hitstun, has little landing lag, and does 11-22% (decent -> incredible damage whether at low or high aura), one of them, while a little slower than your average zoning aerial, is pretty safe on shield especially when fullhopped, lasts 14 frames, and when it connects, usually follows into another aerial, can be used to space or approach, and has less ending lag than most traditional spacers (although admittedly laggy). Meanwhile, we have an average gtfo aerial with no really good range, several aerials that are only good for situational punishment (although to their credit, sting hard when it happens), and a laggy, non-trappable aerial (can you do cool stuff like our character's uair (which btw, kills pretty well if you don't respect it) -> dair/FF AS? No) Need I go on?

The dair can be DI'd and the hit box is mostly below him. It's not like his dair is Marth's fair. So once I know where you dair hit's (it's also not a spacing tool) Why should I fear your move ? Both characters have virtual impunity on each other shield but I'd still give Zelda the edge seen bair OoS is better than any option Lucario has.

You are equally ignoring the strengths of another character, while ignoring the limits of your own, cherrypicking scenarios where your character would find a good shot at doing something. Zelda's best tools are okay, and only because they are good at OPTIMUM, or against an opponent that doesn't know how to deal with her. When things aren't going her way, they're reduced to about as good as the rest of her moveset, oozing with promise, but virtually useless. Not to mention, when you have pidgeonholed options for one specific scenario (dtilt when you catch the opponent or on crossup, for example), it becomes really easy to eliminate (Melee Pichu, anyone? More accurately "I main uair").

I disagree with this Zelda's best tool stack up and compare extremely well to Lucario's. However, I'm supposed to be lead to believe that Lucario runs away with this match. Even if you know how to deal with Zelda's moves and how to DI everything I can still adjust according and put enough on you to DI all of my moves. Dtilt is Zelda's best ground move that comes out on frame 5 links into basically anything and has good range on it. It is an effective move which causes tripping and leads to even more follow ups. It's not pigeonholing anything it's simply the truth.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nc_LIR5ExIU&feature=related

If you're going to be immature and post stuff like these I'd advise you not. It's bad enough we have Zelda players who already **** on the Zelda boards. We don't need other players to come in from other boards to do the same thing.

 

[KuroganeHammer]

They are.

Zamus's short hop is hilarious, so up air is asking to be punished.

D-smash has 20 frames startup, in which she needs to reset her spacing. She will be punished by our own d-smash if she tries to dtilt.

Bair is probably her best approach, and it's not that good either.

Elaborate if you think what I've said is wrong plz.

Edit: Unless you were tacitly agreeing with me.

I cannot tell.

Also about Lucario, I think because our up-smash beats everything ever, it should beat Lucario trying to dair us.

And can Zelda nair > up-smash Lucario? Or is he too floaty?

 

[NickRiddle]

Fuujin told me to come here.
Then I read what everybody was saying, and concluded that nobody knows anything about ZSS...

Our tilts are better than yours because they have range. D-tilt out-ranges so much it isn't funny. U-tilt is frame 3, and hits behind us. F-tilt... isn't really good though.
D-smash is 20 frames of start-up, and yet I land it all the time. Saying a move is slow doesn't mean it'll never hit. Has an Ike ever f-smashed any of you before?
It also out-ranges EVERYTHING you have. Hell, it out-ranges everything META KNIGHT has, except for glide attack.
Uair is bad? For real? Frame 4 with a crazy hitbox, with minimal landing lag?
Bair is bad? Sure, it's not lightning kick, but it's fast, big hitbox, and it doesn't leave us in extra hit-stun if shielded.

That'd be like me saying that Zelda's f-smash and u-smash are her worst moves due to them being SDI-able, or your fair/bair being completely unreliable due to having to hit with the sweet-spot.
If you all think that though, then yes, ZSS's moves suck.
+2 ZSS.

 

[KuroganeHammer]

So you would recommend up air as an approach against Zelda? D:

I dunno mang.

Edit: @above post, I was saying this based on if you hit our shield.

Of course you'll hit us with d-smash especially if we're in the air because of how stupidly high d-smash's hitbox is.

 

[NickRiddle]

So you would recommend up air as an approach against Zelda? D:

I dunno mang.

Not as an approach. I thought you meant the move as a whole sucked.
Umm... approaches with ZSS? Spaced side-b and d-smash. /2008
No, seriously though, d-tilt stuff too. Maybe a paralyzer, or a falling spaced nair.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

Fuujin told me to come here.
Then I read what everybody was saying, and concluded that nobody knows anything about ZSS...

Our tilts are better than yours because they have range. D-tilt out-ranges so much it isn't funny. U-tilt is frame 3, and hits behind us. F-tilt... isn't really good though.
D-smash is 20 frames of start-up, and yet I land it all the time. Saying a move is slow doesn't mean it'll never hit. Has an Ike ever f-smashed any of you before?
It also out-ranges EVERYTHING you have. Hell, it out-ranges everything META KNIGHT has, except for glide attack.
Uair is bad? For real? Frame 4 with a crazy hitbox, with minimal landing lag?
Bair is bad? Sure, it's not lightning kick, but it's fast, big hitbox, and it doesn't leave us in extra hit-stun if shielded.

That'd be like me saying that Zelda's f-smash and u-smash are her worst moves due to them being SDI-able, or your fair/bair being completely unreliable due to having to hit with the sweet-spot.
If you all think that though, then yes, ZSS's moves suck.
+2 ZSS.

What frames does ZSS dtilt comes out on and how does it out priotize Zelda's ? Our hit's on frame 5. Please stop actually like ZSS tilts are good cuz they aint.