Template:SSB4 to SSBU changelist/Toon Link

Aesthetics

• As with all veterans returning from Smash 4, Toon Link's model features a more subdued color scheme. His clothing now features simple woven and stitched detailing, similar to his design in Brawl, though his hair remains clay-like. Visually, it better resembles his model in The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD.
• Some of the textures of Toon Link's face have been modified: his brow is more furrowed, the outline in his eyes aren’t fully connected similar to the official artworks from the The Wind Waker and his mouth is now represented by a black dash, making it look less organic. Overall, he appears more cartoonish as a result.
• Toon Link's hair is now affected by gravity and wind. His hat also now has more physics-based movement than before.
• Like many other returning characters, Toon Link is more expressive. He is now more consistently angry and serious to match the other Links. In general, he now has a wide variety of expressions in his animations.
• Several of Toon Link's animations have been altered to further distinguish him from the other Links.
  • While jumping, he raises his shield more.
  • During his falling animation, he spreads his legs apart. His helpless animation is also different, now leaning more forward as he falls. However, he reuses his falling animations from Smash 4 when moving forward or backward while falling.
  • His double jump animation is now an upward flip similar to Roy and Ganondorf.
• Toon Link's sword attacks now use a set of new, cartoonish slash sound effects when they land.
• Toon Link's taunts have all been modified:
  • His up taunt now faces the screen regardless of the direction he is facing.
  • His side taunt has a more surprised expression and pose. The fairy also now disappears in a Wind Waker style puff of smoke.
  • His down taunt now has him visibly sweating. Like his up taunt, it now faces the screen regardless of the direction he's facing.
• Toon Link's victory pose where he conducts with the Wind Waker has been modified to be more in line with his official art from The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker and its HD version.

Attributes

• Like all characters, Toon Link's jumpsquat animation takes three frames to complete (down from 5).
• Toon Link is slightly lighter (93 → 91), now being the same weight as Palutena. This slightly hinders his endurance.
• Toon Link walks slightly faster (1.2265 → 1.288).
• Toon Link dashes faster (1.7325 → 1.906).
• Toon Link's air speed has been increased (0.94 → 1.05).
• Toon Link's falling speed has been increased (1.28 → 1.38).
  • His fast fall speed has also been increased (2.048 → 2.208), making him harder to juggle.
• Due to his higher falling speed, Toon Link's air time is shorter (SH timing: 41 → 40), (FH timing: 63 → 56).
• Toon Link's sidestep has increased startup on his invincibility (2-15 → 3-16), but less ending lag (25 → 20), now being tied for the third fastest.
• Toon Link's back roll has slightly increased invincibility (4-14 → 4-15), but much more ending lag (27 frames → 34).
• Toon Link's forward roll has slightly longer duration (FAF 27 → 29).
• Toon Link can now Z-drop items such as his Bombs without releasing the Hookshot. This vastly improves its versatility and utility as a tactic, mixup, combo and disadvantage tool. This also sees the return of the Invincibomb technique.
  • This change no longer allows Toon Link to Z-drop and use hookshot at the same time.
• The mechanical change to Tethers removes Toon Link's ability to cancel his airdodge into his hookshot, removing an option from his kit and vastly nerfing his recovery mixup potential.
  • Toon Link is still able to Tether to ledge while holding a bomb, by simply pressing Grab without holding a direction.

Ground attacks

• Neutral attack:
  • Toon Link's first and second neutral attack have reworked launch angles and knockback, allowing them to lock opponents, but hindering their jab cancel ability at high percents.
  • Neutral attack's first hit (3.5u/4.2/3.8u → 1.8u/1.8u/1.8u/1.8u) and second hit (3.5u/4.2u/4u → 2.5u/3.2u/3.2u/3.2u) have had their three larger hitboxes replaced with four smaller ones.
  • Neutral attack's first hit has faster startup (frame 6 → 5).
    • Neutral attack's first hit does slightly less damage (3% → 2%).
  • The third hit now uses two extended hitboxes that are slightly larger (4.2u/4.2u/3u → 4.5u/3.5u).
  • Neutral attack's third hit has fewer active frames (frame 6-10 → 6-7).
  • Neutral attack's third hit deals more base knockback but less knockback scaling (55 base/100 scaling → 75/70, 70/70), and sends opponents at a semi-spike angle (48° → 30°), granting it tech chase setups. Overall, it KOs slightly earlier, especially near the ledge.
  • Toon Link strikes a pose at the end of his third neutral attack.
• Forward tilt:
  • Forward tilt has an altered animation. The hitboxes start farther behind Toon Link, but do not hit as high.
  • Forward tilt's farthest hitbox has a fixed angle on frame 9 (361° → 38°).
  • Forward tilt has more base knockback, but less knockback scaling (25 base/102 scaling → 45/83), overall hindering its KO potential.
    • However, this makes it safe on hit at all percents.
  • Forward tilt has less ending lag (FAF 34 → 30).
• Down tilt:
  • Down tilt has an altered animation where Toon Link swings his arm back more quickly, reducing his hurtbox extension. Since hitbox interpolation still retains the move's hit detection from frame 9, it effectively has a higher disjoint and added range in the z-axis on frame 10.
• Dash attack:
  • Dash attack has less startup (frame 9 → 7) and ending lag (FAF 40 → 29), making it much more useful and safer in landing trap situations.
  • Dash attack's hitboxes are larger (3.5u/4u/3u → 4.2u/4u/3.5u).
  • Both sweetspot hitboxes now have priority over the sourspot.
• Forward smash:
  • Toon Link has a new forward smash: a single upward swing. It resembles the final hit of Toon Link's sword animation when moving from The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker.
  • Toon Link is now silent when performing the move.
  • Due to the removal of the first swing, its maximum damage is lower (21% → 14%), and it has lost its mix-up potential.
  • Forward smash has slightly more startup (15 frames → 16).
  • Forward smash's new animation has Toon Link swipe upwards and lunge farther; while the hitboxes are smaller, they are attached to his arm and sword instead of being static and directly front of him. Overall, it has improved vertical range.
    • The new animation also makes hitting grounded opponents more inconsistent, and no longer able to hit opponents hanging at the ledge.
  • Its launching knockback was compensated for the damage value changes (25/32 base / 130 scaling → 25/20 / 110).
  • Compared to the old second hit, it has more startup (12 frames → 16) but less cooldown (FAF 50 → 49), which with its higher damage makes it less unsafe on shield.
• Up smash:
  • Up smash has a slightly altered animation. Toon Link slightly turns after leaping.
  • Due to the altered animation, the sourspot hitbox is harder to land, improving the move's KO potential.
  • Up smash has fewer active frames (frame 11-17 → 11-15).
• Down smash:
  • Down smash has an altered animation.
  • Down smash has been reworked. Instead of the front hit leading grounded opponents into the back hit while launching aerial opponents weakly upward, the front and back hits are now separate launching hits, with no differences between grounded and aerial opponents.
    • This improves the consistency of the move and drastically improves its KO power on aerial opponents.
    • It has slightly lower maximum damage when hitting grounded opponents from the front (13% → 12%).
  • Down smash has altered hitboxes. Overall, the front hit's range is slightly increased and better at hitting ledge, while the back hit's is slightly decreased and worse at hitting ledge.
  • Down smash's knockback was not fully compensated for the damage value changes, overall dealing much more knockback. The launch angles are also lower (50° → 48°/42°), improving its KO potential off the side blast zones.
  • The back hit no longer has a sourspot.
  • The back hit uses the slash effect instead of the normal effect.
  • Down smash has less ending lag (FAF 50 → 47).

Aerial attacks

• All aerials have less landing lag (12 frames → 7 (neutral), 18 → 11 (forward), 17 → 8 (back), 21 → 13 (up), 40 → 23 (down)).
• Neutral aerial:
  • Both of neutral aerial's hits have larger hitboxes (3u/3.6u/4u/2.5u → 4u/4.5u/4.5u/2.5u)
• Forward aerial:
  • Forward aerial auto-cancels significantly earlier (frame 51 → 39), matching its interruptibility. This also allows it to auto-cancel out of a short hop like in Brawl.
  • Forward aerial's large hitbox has been replaced with three smaller ones (7.5u → 5u/5u/4u) that are attached to his arm and sword.
    • These new hitboxes follow the sword hitbox more closely, allowing forward aerial to hit opponents above Toon Link on frame 15.
• Back aerial:
  • Back aerial has less startup (frame 7 → 6).
  • Back aerial has far less ending lag (FAF 46 → 36), allowing Toon Link to double jump out of a short hop with it once again.
  • Back aerial auto-cancels earlier (frame 38 → 34).
  • Back aerial deals less damage (11% → 8%) without full compensation for its base knockback (18 → 24), losing its already poor KO potential.
    • Back aerial's lowered knockback and less ending lag has vastly improved its combo and setup potential.
• Up aerial:
  • Up aerial has an altered animation where Toon Link ducks more. This lowers his hurtbox and allows him to hit opponents beneath him more effectively, similar to Link's up aerial.
• Down aerial:
  • Down aerial's hitboxes are slightly smaller (5.6u (clean)/5.3u (late) → 5.5u/5u) and higher up (Y offset: -3 → -1.1), reducing its range.
• Grab aerial:
  • Grab aerial has less ending lag (FAF 75 → 74).
  • Grab aerial can only hit one opponent or projectile. Once it collides with something, it bounces off and the hitbox is disabled.

Throws and other attacks

• All grabs have less ending lag (FAF 62 → 53 (standing), 72 → 61 (dash), 72 → 56 (pivot)).
• Toon Link has an altered down throw animation where he jumps much higher in the air before tackling his opponent. This helps him avoid projectiles close to the ground (especially his own bombs), but opens him to projectiles in the air.
• Up throw's collateral has a much shorter duration (26-30 → 27), hindering its range.
• Back throw has less knockback growth (120 → 110), reducing its KO potential.
• Toon Link now faces the opposite direction when using down throw.
• All of Toon Link's item tosses have more ending lag, reducing the potency of his item throws and followups (20 → 24 (forward/back), 20 → 23 (up), 19 → 20 (down)).)

Special moves

• Hero's Bow:
  • Arrows can no longer be held indefinitely upon reaching full charge, now automatically firing if held for more than three seconds.
• Boomerang:
  • Boomerang appears to have a new model, featuring a more simplistic design.
  • A Boomerang performed with a smash input has increased damage and slightly increased knockback compared to a Tilt input (8% (near)/5% (mid) → 9.6%/6%).
  • Boomerang now has a clanking animation where it bounces quickly before falling and disappearing.
    • Boomerang is unavailable during this clanking animation, reducing Boomerang's utility in trade situations.
  • Boomerang has less duration on the returning hitbox. This reduces the potential of the returning boomerang, but the Boomerang now reappears in Toon Link's hands more quickly.
  • Boomerang has different physics when bouncing against surfaces in certain situations, most notably on return, altering the utility of returning boomerang.
• Spin Attack:
  • Spin Attack's sword trails are blue, now matching how they were in The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. In addition, the grounded version's animation was altered a bit. Toon Link no longer holds the sword perfectly parallel to the ground while he spins.
  • Grounded Spin Attack has less startup lag (frame 9 → 6) and its duration was compensated (FAF 81 → 78), increasing its utility and safety.
  • Grounded Spin Attack's final hit has significantly increased knockback scaling (141 → 180) and launches at a lower angle (55° → 48°), granting it KO potential.
  • Grounded Spin Attack always knocks opponents in the direction Toon Link is facing, giving Toon Link the ability to control where his opponent is sent.
  • Aerial Spin Attack now has multiple hitboxes behind Toon Link, improving its safety and utility, and also increasing damage output on large targets caught in the attack.
  • Aerial Spin Attack now allows Toon Link to retain much more horizontal drift after the final hitbox, improving its spacing and recovery potential.
  • Aerial Spin Attack no longer takes away Toon Link's midair jump if he is interrupted before recovering, granting him more recovery mixups.
  • Toon Link strikes a slightly different pose during the final hit of Aerial Spin Attack, closely matching Link's new pose during his Aerial Spin Attack as well.
• Bomb:
  • Toon Link now pulls out the Bomb slightly quicker (FAF 40 → 37).
  • Bomb no longer does differing damage based on direct contact (4%) or the explosion (5%-8%). Both damage values have been homogenized, and the only factor to the bombs damage is the velocity before impact.
    • Bombs overall do less damage (4%-8% → 4.2%-6.5%). However, the lower damage betters bomb combo potential.
  • Bombs launch at a higher angle (70° → 75°), and have altered knockback (42 (base)/70 (scaling) → 40/80).
  • Bombs no longer beat weak projectiles, instead bouncing at the point of contact and falling to the ground. This massively reduces the potency of bombs in trade situations.
  • Bombs now always explode against fire-based attacks, regardless of how much damage the move does. While this removes their potential to absorb fire-based projectiles, it also allows Toon Link to force an opponent to blow up a bomb in his favor.
• Triforce Slash:
  • Triforce Slash has had its activation range massively increased, allowing Toon Link to chase down targets across Final Destination, like Link's iteration from Brawl and Smash 4.