A lot of people won’t agree with me here because they can’t grasp the concept of holding shield so the character is automatically braindead garbage, but I think Zelda is really well designed. She requires a lot of execution and great timing which makes it very rewarding to master her, and she has some glaring flaws that are fun to work around in different ways. I think the only things I would change is make her Jab & NAir work like they did in Smash 4, and give her FTilt a very slightly bigger vertical hitbox. Wouldn’t make her top tier or anything but they’re just some slight grievances that annoy me. Other than that though I think the character is almost perfect and is a huge step up from Smash 4. I don’t need her to be top tier so long as she’s fun to use.
With how many people like playing ultimate. (Rush down/fast paced) and the fact that Zelda mains tend to somehow have the exact same play style in online I think the hate is justified. Granted she’s my second least favorite character to fight against in ultimate. (Number 1 is pirahna plant due to how poorly designed ptooie is.)
What’s wrong with Ptooie out of curiosity?
If you are bad at the matchup it can be hard to punish and it could feel random where it ends up.
However, it is way easier to punish once you get good at the matchup, and most things that feel random are actually completely consistent in the plant's control. Patooie goes farther the close to plant it is, and the rolling physics are pretty consistent to get it to roll of of platforms or the stage.
My friends who barely fight my plant say how patooie is a broken projectile and constantly get hit when they attempt to punish, but my friend who plays against my plant a lot is able to consistently punish patooie
Well I despise how infuriating it can be to face, other issues I have with it is that it’s a better version of mii brawler shotput, it’s also the reason why the rest of plants moves are shit which I hate to see in a moveset & why I consider characters like puff, wario & especially piranha plant to be poorly designed.
Well the thing is, unlike characters like Pythra where you can mash buttons and get away with it you can’t really do that with Zelda because she’s so slow. It’s hard to play her aggressively and you need to know timing and when to press. Like Marth I think it’s good to switch from aggro/defense on a whim instead of doing only one.
Bro really said you can't mash with Zelda 🤣
Oh my wise pal. Please share with me what you can mash with Zelda
Neutral b.
That’s it? LMFAOOO bro just hold shield and don’t over extend. You have more than enough time to confirm if the move is over and punish, and if you’re fighting a Zelda that’s spamming it they’re just throwing free punishes your way.
I didn't say I was having trouble with it, he asked what move Zeldas mash. This whole game is hold shield with your character and punish mistakes, what are you even on about?
So if you know how the beat the move then what’s the issue?
There isn't, you're the only one insinuating there is. Are you ok?
Ah yes. Lemme mash an option that has more than half a second of lag.
That’ll surely work (Funny thing is, this will work you up pretty far online. I’m guessing)
You asked what Zeldas mash. Not saying it's a good option but it's literally all the online Zeldas mash. That and up b out of shield.
Well you can but it won’t work on a good player
Pyra and Mythra still catching stray assaults in a Zelda post 😔
Hey aren’t you the mofo that thought comparing duck hunt a character who you can hit 3 out of their 4 specials to Zelda a character who has 2 invincible attacks, with one of those attacks being a multi hit, reflector with big enough knockback was a good idea?
Well yes, because unlike Zelda DH struggles to kill sometimes, so ive never been in a situation where I was fighting a Zelda and prayed for my opponent to just kill me so I can end the match and leave. Say what you want about Zelda but I’d rather count each and every individual grain of sand in the Sahara Desert one by one in 200 degree weather than ever fight a Duck Hunt player ever.
They could’ve at least gave her a different Fair and not made it exactly the same as Bair.
Byleth’s Fair and Bair at least have different properties despite looking pretty similar. Zelda’s Fair and Bair being the exact same thing when it could be a million other things pulled from her games is a huge missed opportunity.
Falcon has Fair Knee so Zelda can keep her Bair so it’s unique but Fair could and should be different.
agreed. fair should be different. i would drop her dair, too, since landing is miserable on Zelda (and nothing else is really making up for it either). like some kind of magic sweep thing maybe that can actually pressure.
that is, if they don't just totally rehaul her (fingers crossed!)
If you’re struggling with landing save your jump and be ambiguous with B-Reverse neutral airs and a teleport ledge cancel if you’re feeling fancy. I wouldn’t recommend landing with DAir unless the opponent prematurely tries to swat you out of the air.
I think it’s good that they’re the same since you can hard punish shield drops and jump call outs facing both directions, but if they did give her a different NAir I wouldn’t be too upset (depending on what they do ofc)
https://preview.redd.it/f27qgapfjk9g1.jpeg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f32c2e9dee12679a245be55b7ac609fe5a5b8c33
“I think my main is skillful as well as fun and thoughtful to play against”
Truly groundbreaking
This is really only the case for Zelda, Sephiroth, & Marth. I also play Ganondorf and I fully admit that he’s braindead and I only play him when I’m tired of thinking and want to press buttons randomly until it works.
Zelda is infinitely more braindead than Ganon though especially online. The fact I still see Zelda players at 15.6~7m GSP with nearly no neutral tell me a lot of people are losing to these players for a reason. Neutral B, Down B, Up Air and Up B have such a high rewards in a laggy environment that it would carry anyone at this point.
Your facing Zelda mains that use airiels in online?
You like toes, just admit it
The fact you jumped straight to Zelda's feet says more about you than OP lol.
"I don’t need her to be top tier"
how about anywhere above essentially bottom tier for literally even just one goddamn game.
don't get me wrong, though, the LOOK and personality is fantastic and the best it's been ever.
I played both her & Ganondorf in Smash 4 so tier placements don’t really mean much to me. Again so long as they’re fun to use whether that be high or low it doesn’t matter.
To be honest, I just don't like Din's Fire. If I could get rid of anything from her, it's her side special.
Or at the very least, make it 3x as fast and activate immediately. Ultimate treats Din's Fire like a highly spammable projectile but does not have the attributes of one.
I love Din’s fire. It forces double jump or air dodge offstage and makes them vulnerable to an edgeguard.
https://preview.redd.it/a6mr9z20mk9g1.jpeg?width=312&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3a0cf6519836238a08669eb7a484decb69d6b1a7
Imagine complaining about this when shine exists
Jokes aside, I feel like this move would be much better if it was a single hit that could be used to combo. And in return we can nuke phantom (I hate that move. I play Zelda from time to time btw) But just anything more than a close the door move that it is right now
Nairus love, fuck you
As a PR ranked offline Zelda player, some of the experiences that people have fighting Wi-Fi Zelda players is crazy. Anytime I ever coach Zelda players in particular it’s always to teach them to play without her special moves.
It’s unfortunate - Zelda’s special moves are so good that they teach casual players to literally never use any of her other moves.
Nayru’s Love teaches players to not learn close quarters combat, because it beats fast up close aggressive options, catches spotdodges and rolls, etc. They can’t learn footsies because the move solves their problem most of the time. It’s humanly impossible to react to the start up of the move, you can only expect it to happen through pattern recognition.
Din’s Fire teaches players that they can edgeguard without taking any risk (but it becomes a very easy move to airdodge, and therefore, actually helps average Zelda players better time their Phantom for a ledgetrap) it’s unfortunate because they miss out on learning more effective edge guards with their other moves/baiting out options offstage
Farore’s Wind teaches players that it’s the main way she approaches in neutral, so they never learn proper approaches/bait and punish playstyles. It’s very easy to know what Zelda you’re fighting online if you just hold shield after you hit them. If they teleport into you, it’s essential free GSP (though I haven’t played Elite in like 3 years)
And the Phantom teaches players how to not play neutral with just their character. If they have the space, they just charge. If you run close, they’ll throw the phantom. If you don’t, they’ll either finish it and throw dins fire or Farore’s wind, or they’ll run at you. Since you’re in neutral it’s very easy to anticipate and outplay because it’s one dimensional.
Well said, this is a character with a very high skill ceiling, but there are many nets new players get caught in for quick rewards. They develop a comfort with spammy moves that work on other new players, and then they master this spam to beat amateur and intermediate players (especially online). You need to learn her tight kill combos and you need very good spacing to beat advanced players, and you need to master all that and more to beat pro players. Even then, due to her weaknesses, it is highly unlikely a top player will lose to a Zelda.
Bait used to be believable.
When Ultimate was just releasing, Zelda was actually my most hype character to try out. I thought they nailed her aesthetic and stuff like nair looked like it felt really good to land in the new engine... However, my biggest gripe with her is down b. It really ruins the whole character for me. Just give us another spell or something! Not the most annoying edge guard in the game
I agree , her jab and nair was definitely better in smash 4 . I miss them .
Literally unreadable, unpredictable Up B disagrees.
Very easy to just shield and punish. Just click shield when you hear that sound. You’ll be parrying it in no time since it has the same timing every time. (Not that you need to, she has so much endlag)
I used to absolutely hate zelda, then after echoes of wisdom I decided to temporarily ignore my resentment for her in this game because as a character I fuck with her and I was in a bit of a TLOZ fever.
Found out a few things I wasn't expecting:
A lot of my reason for hating her came down to playing DDD who is absolutely gatekept by Zelda and has a miserable time Vs her besides the fact the matchup is badly losing.
The rest of my reasoning came from the majority of the online Zelda playerbase seemingly being determined to play as lame and annoying as possible. This applied even when I was using other characters.
If you use her whole kit, she's really fun to use. I enjoyed the challenge of playing her with more emphasis on her cqc tools. Her normals are honestly really enjoyable to play with. All her tilts are solid, her smash attacks are pretty decent, her aerials are fun. Her combos are fun. I don't really think her struggles with antiairing are that bad except Vs fast disjoints, in which case you do have the zoning to fall back on.
Honestly if you just play Zelda without spamming specials she's actually pretty fucking cool.
Shoutout to Zelda's Downthrow bair, and dair, for both being fucking awesome. Also downtilt/ftilt absolutely carried my brawler based Zelda into elite. Fuck her up/down b's though still.
Till Zelda wears heels. I thought they were flat sandals
This has to be rage bait
yeah, on my dick maybe
I fought her once in quick play and just couldn't do anything. Player was mastering her so well. Couldn't even make her lose one stock. I got owned so bad I saved the video, which I'd share if I had access right now but yes, she's probably highly underrated. I don't think I encountered her much aside from this fight.
Zelda isisnt that good as a main
Valid opinion. Then again, I main Zelda as a secondary, so eh, biased.
But it's going to fall on deaf ears and trashed on since most people here hate Zelda.
I will not give my point if you right or wrong. I will say my point of view about Zelda.
In terms of moves, it's very relatable with character and the franchise itself and this, Zelda is very good: how good is characterized according to the franchise.
In terms of moves execution, the controversy appears. I consider community has two views about the character: spammy braindead character or good usage if you have an excellent control of your moves (specially the b button). Of course, like every character, you can have these two players, but, as my experience as smash player, spammy players are more frequent. Of course I got good Zelda players, but they are very rare.
Zelda is a character who could make good execution moves, creating combos with her most usage tools (b options), however, she tends to works more as a spammer character than other thing
And I like her new design way better than the TP one lol
I agree so much, the worst thing about Zelda is receiving hate for playing as her even though she is a very low tier character. Noobs think she’s broken, and good players exploit her weaknesses.
Btw that’s such a cute picture of her! I think that’s her double jump but up against the ledge?
https://preview.redd.it/z4vgutnsou9g1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7d45026777d41c4225a49029f07b6ccd62f70df6
THIS IS THE COOLEST SMASHULTI PICTURE EVER
You’re an idiot not gonna lie.
You can suck a cock
Man said “Kazuya is easy” and “Zelda is hard” 😭
Well, one character is a top tier with touch of death combos, auto-turnaround, several invincibility moves and a comeback mechanic, and the other is considered the 3rd worst character in the game because she has no reliable combos, is slow, has no out of shield option, and has no safe way of getting off ledge without being vulnerable.
Top tier =/= easy to play
Low tier =/= hard to play
I didn’t say Kazuya was easy to play as. He’s easier to beat competent players with.
Little Mac? Second worst character in the game. No aerial game, no recovery, is camped easily… Yet one of the easiest characters to play. Just because a character is bad doesn’t mean they’re hard to use.
He’s definitely harder to beat intelligent players with even though he is easy to use.
Don’t feel bad about yourself for playing an easy character, it’s fine. I mean I literally main Little Mac and secondary Pyra/Mythra and King K Rool. This this cope is crazy 😭
Yes, it is easy to mash buttons with Zelda and beat other booger eaters. To bring her to anything close to viable and actually beat people who know how to defend and approach, she has difficult kill confirms, reaction based combos, and requires incredible spacing and timing. Little Mac needs a profound understanding of neutral and bait/punish skill to beat anyone who has experience fighting him. Peanut is a genius and barely makes Mac viable.
That’s any character though. You need those things with any character to beat top players 😭
Underrated and valid opinion
I once got fried for saying that Lucas was hard to play because like Zelda any character they don’t like or find annoying is automatically braindead. I can’t stand fighting Pikachu but I can at least give his players props.
I wouldn't say Lucas is hard to play. He certainly isn't braindead and does have a bit of a learning curve because of the multiple effects his neutral attacks have, but he's actually pretty manageable to play in this game.
He's not a pick up and play character, he's got stubby precise hitboxes and that's why people fall on side b as their entire neutral. Being floaty makes him both easier to space with but also a million times easier to outspace and react to, which is a big problem when you have stubby precise hitboxes.