Editing Roy (SSBU)

Roy is a [[weight|middleweight]] swordsman, although his main attributes deviate heavily from those of other middleweights. He boasts very fast [[dash]]ing, [[air speed|air]], and [[falling speed]]s, but has only slightly above-average [[walk]]ing speed, as well as fairly low [[air acceleration]] and [[jump]]s. Roy has an attribute unique to him that other swordfighters do not have: his inverse tipper. Contrary to {{SSBU|Marth}} specifically, his Binding Blade does the most damage if attacking near the sword's hilt, although it does weak damage and knockback when otherwise tippered. While this gives Roy effectively bigger sweetspots than those who rely on a tipper to deal maximum damage, it weakens his spacing abilities despite being a swordfighter.

Roy's KO potential also extends to his great air game, with quick, powerful, and damaging aerials; his [[neutral aerial]] is a useful combo starter, especially when using the first hit by itself on landing, which allows him to add extra damage to his combos and even open up KO setups at high percentages. His [[forward aerial]] autocancels in a short hop and is overall very quick, allowing him to even perform a [[wall of pain]]. At high percentages, it also boasts KO potential. [[Back aerial]] has the rare and deceptive quality of turning Roy around, as well as being rather quick despite its power, KOing at around 130% from center-stage. [[Up aerial]] is Roy's fastest aerial startup-wise, and is a reliable juggling move due to its large hitbox and average knockback, and can even KO by itself at high percentages. Lastly, [[down aerial]] is a strong [[meteor smash]] when sweetspotted and boasts decent KO potential when sweetspotted on-stage.

Roy is also extremely effective at shield pressure and mix-ups. Many of his aerials and his down tilt are safe on shield against shield grabs, allowing him to pressure the opponent's shield until they choose an option to escape, which Roy can then punish. Roy's neutral attack is useful thanks to its KO confirms into his forward, back, and up aerials, as well as its ability to pressure shields and to catch the enemy coming out of shield. Roy's neutral aerial is also very effective as a cross-up attack on characters who lack out-of-shield options that hit behind them. Up aerial can also function as a combo starter and is safe on shield, and leads into different follow-ups dependent on whether the sweetspot or the sourspot connects. Roy can also simply grab opponents for shielding against him; he has simple but efficient throw combos, such as down throw into neutral aerial or up aerial, depending on percent. Roy even possesses some shield break set-ups if the opponent is not careful, rewarding Roy with a Flare Blade punish.

Roy's special moveset maintains his sheer speed and KO power; [[Flare Blade]] is known for being one of the strongest single-hitting attacks in the game, with the capability to one-hit KO any fighter in the game when fully charged. Combined with its ability to be reversed and its extremely high knockback, it adds up to be a very potent [[edge-guarding]] and ledge trapping tool, and has deceptively low ending lag despite its power to avoid punishment. As a result, Roy is one of the few characters who can reliably close out stocks on shield breaks regardless of the opponent's damage. [[Double-Edge Dance]] is a quick and efficient damage-racking series of high-speed sword slashes, along with being a reliable finisher at higher percentages if sweetspotted; it is fast enough for each hit to connect reliably and catch spot dodges. His main recovery move, [[Blazer]], is an excellent [[out of shield]] option, due to Roy gaining super [[armor]] on startup and having decent knockback growth when grounded. Lastly, his [[Counter]] has a short window of active frames compared to other counterattacks, but it makes up for being one of the strongest counters in the game thanks to its 1.35× damage multiplier.

Despite Roy's numerous strengths, he has noticeable weaknesses. His biggest flaw stems from his own inverse tipper attribute; by relying on close-quarters attacks to deal damage, it gives him below-average effective reach compared to other swordfighters due to the Binding Blade's tip dealing weak knockback and damage. Thus, Roy cannot rely on a spacing playstyle despite his status as a swordsman, since his sourspotted attacks are less reliable as combo starters. This forces him to get dangerously close to the opponent for his attacks to properly start combos and deal more damage. This is further worsened by many of his attacks having high ending lag, which makes Roy very punishable if his attacks are simply thrown out without caution. In all, he cannot perform optimally when spacing with the tip of his sword, but cannot afford to make mistakes when at close range without running the risk of massive punishment.

Lastly, Roy's offstage endurance is very poor. His fast-falling speed makes him fairly susceptible to [[combo]]s, and as none of his moves are generally reliable enough to consistently break combos, many characters with reliable combo moves can rack up large amounts of damage and easily force him off-stage. To add to this issue, Roy's only [[recovery]] move, Blazer, is fairly ineffective despite his impressive mobility: although it offers good protection, can be angled, and covers a decent amount of horizontal distance, it covers little vertical distance, does not sweetspot edges until the latter half of its duration, lacks the grounded version's super armor, and is predictable, leaving him prone to gimping, especially against characters with a reliable gimping projectile or counter. When coupled with his fast-falling speed, he is highly susceptible to meteor smashes, and even a sufficiently strong [[semi-spike]] can launch him too far away to recover. Multi-hit moves that trade with Blazer's hitboxes can also semi-spike Roy and gimp him. This causes him to have one of the worst recoveries in the game and arguably across the whole series.