Zelda (SSBU)

Zelda in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Universe	The Legend of Zelda
Other playable appearances	in Melee in Brawl in SSB4
Availability	Unlockable
Final Smash	Triforce of Wisdom
Tier	D+ (73)

Zelda (ゼルダ, Zelda) is a playable character in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. She was confirmed as a playable character along with Sheik and the rest of veterans on June 12, 2018. Unlike the game's predecessors, she is unlockable instead of being available from the start. Zelda is classified as Fighter #17.

Ultimate breaks the streak of Zelda being voiced in the Smash series by Jun Mizusawa, who voiced the character in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Similar to fellow Zelda fighters Link and Ganondorf, Zelda has brand new voice clips provided by Ayumi Fujimura, who reprises her role from The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds; it would be one of her last roles before her retirement in 2019. In the Japanese opening of World of Light, Fujimura provides a single line of spoken dialogue as Zelda; this line is dubbed in English by Brandy Kopp, who also voices Palutena.

Zelda is ranked 73rd out of 82 on the current tier list, placing her at the bottom of the D+ tier; a slight improvement from her 52nd/53rd out of 54 placement in SSB4 where she was tied with Ganondorf, and her best placement in the series. She has an abundance of KO options, with power comparable to or exceeding that of heavyweights, despite being a lightweight. Among them are several outstanding kill throws and Phantom Slash, a versatile zoning and trapping tool that can start or finish combos, force approaches and apply pressure by controlling space, namely in ledge trapping. Many of her strongest attacks come out surprisingly fast and have transcendent priority, tending to create favorable trades if not outright beating out the opponent. Several double as effective out-of-shield options, notoriously Farore's Wind, which is also one of the best recovery moves in the game, and her Lightning Kicks—the immense power of the latter, especially as aerials, makes them versatile finishers, giving Zelda the signature ability to convert into very early KOs without the use of smash attacks.

Despite these strengths, Zelda has many notable weaknesses. Her main finishers and safe-on-shield moves require precise sweetspots or spacing, weak sourspots that can even be punishable on hit, and/or high ending lag. Her mobility is among the worst in the game, which compounds the inconsistency of these moves. The hitboxes on several of her attacks are poor, limiting their utility and giving her especially poor defense with their transcendence; she lacks fast, low-committal projectiles herself, making her susceptible to being outcamped. She also has a limited number of moves and rather small or inconsistent windows to confirm into other moves, as some of her combo moves like down tilt and neutral aerial have unfavourable angles that make them inconsistent at starting and extending combos without the proper timing or percents. Thus, as Zelda relies heavily on the committal Phantom to secure damage and KOs, as well as to compensate for her mobility, approach options and pressure, she can crumble in stretches of combat where it is unfit to use. An unfavorable combination of tallness, floatiness, a lack of landing options and her light weight results in one of the worst disadvantage states and overall endurances in the game.

Overall, Zelda plays a decent zoning game and a strong trapping game, with tools for controlling space and KOing early, but her precise hitboxes and low mobility result in poor consistency and a weak neutral and disadvantage state, making her a glass cannon with a focus on precision. Zelda is rarely represented in tournaments, but there have been dedicated players, such as Yn from Japan, Naskino in France, and Ven in the United States, with respectable results.

How to unlock

Complete one of the following:

• Play VS. matches, with Zelda being the 2nd character to be unlocked.
• Clear Classic Mode with Kirby or any character in his unlock tree, being the 4th character unlocked after Pac-Man.
• Have Zelda join the player's party in World of Light.

Zelda must then be defeated on Temple (the Ω form is used in World of Light).

Attributes

Zelda is a tall, floaty lightweight character (weighing the same as Sora) with overall slow mobility. While she has an above-average air speed, initial dash and traction, her jumps and air acceleration are below average, and she has the 22nd slowest walking speed, the 16th slowest falling speed, the 10th lowest gravity, and is tied with Byleth for the 9th slowest running speed in the game. Zelda possesses the largest array of transcendent moves in the game; her attacks are mostly based on magic, being short-ranged attacks with varying but overall modest degrees of disjoint. They also boast a generally quick startup; all her normal attacks activate before frame 10, except for forward tilt, up aerial, down aerial, and forward smash. Despite her low weight, many of her attacks have impressive KO potential and damage output, giving her power comparable to that of heavyweights. Due to these factors, Zelda can be generalized as a zoner glass cannon.

Zelda's ground game is notably safer than her aerial game due to generally being less committal and more consistent. She has decent close-quarters combat, namely in her down tilt, a short-ranged low-profiling poke, and up tilt, a large all-around anti-air; both are quick to execute combo starters with long-lasting hitboxes. They often work in tandem with dash attack, which is her most important burst and punish option with excellent speed and large hitboxes. More situational is her neutral attack, which is her fastest move at frame 4; it can transition into a rapid jab for simple damage, or sometimes combo at high percents on its own, but is short-ranged, inconsistent at comboing, and unsafe on shield. Forward tilt is the biggest outlier, being much slower with narrow hitboxes and a strong but low-priority tipper; it can be used to space (especially on shield) at a longer range.

Though known for her broad power, Zelda's smash attacks are one of the few areas where she falls average in strength, although they are all still respectable finishers. Her forward smash has a good horizontal disjoint with multiple hits; it is a decent option for catching ledge getups, and due to its rather low ending lag, it can be hard to punish on shield, especially if spaced and/or charged. Up smash is similarly a powerful multi-hit, though laggier and having poor horizontal range, it has a fast startup (frame 9) that can punish poorly spaced moves on shield, and has a very long duration of 23 active frames, making it effective for catching getups and landings. Down smash is a simple leg sweep with average power, being one of her few non-magic attacks, but compensates by being very fast at frame 5; hitting on both sides, the foot sweetspots semi-spike at a nasty launch angle that can easily set up edgeguards.

Zelda possesses one of the most powerful sets of aerials in the game; uniquely, a majority of them are highly polarized with high risk and high reward, limiting their usage in neutral and forcing her to play carefully in the air. Her forward and back aerials, known as her Lightning Kicks, are by far the most polarized moves. Both have a fast startup at frame 6 with an incredibly strong sweetspot at her toe, making them effective punishes and deadly out of shield options. However, the sweetspot is tiny and only active for one frame. Additionally, they have high ending lag; the sourspots are also pitifully weak, even being punishable on hit at most percentages. This makes them very risky. Down aerial is a vaguely similar move with a powerful single-frame clean hit on her leg, but a very weak late hit. Although slow to come out and weaker than her Lightning Kicks, the clean hit is much larger, the late hit lingers for longer, and all hits meteor smash, making it useful for gimping. The clean hit has great utility in punishes, as hitting it on grounded opponents can start a combo at nearly any percent for massive damage or a KO confirm.

Up aerial is Zelda's only truly consistent aerial, as it consists of a single strong, large, and lingering hitbox. A vertically disjointed explosion with excellent power. While having relatively low landing lag, it has significant startup and ending lag and only covers the range above her, limiting its usage. Neutral aerial stands out as her only aerial to not have outstanding power or a notable sweetspot. Instead, as a multi-hit with many active frames hitting on both sides, it serves as her least committal, most versatile aerial. It can auto-cancel in a short hop, which, with good execution, can most reliably convert into an up tilt or dash attack at lower percents; it can also combo into a dash attack when fast-falled, and a single hit can pop grounded opponents up into a variety of confirms at virtually any percent, making it a versatile combo starter. Despite being her most important all-around aerial, it lacks an autolink angle, instead having a rather convoluted set of six hitboxes that cause the move to be inconsistent and the launch direction to be volatile.

Overall, Zelda's aerials on their own can be awkward for spacing, air-to-air combat, and starting combos, instead functioning more strongly in conjunction with and as follow-ups to other moves. One of the moves that most boosts the potency of her aerials is her down special, Phantom Slash, her most important tool. It's a unique projectile with a hurtbox that she builds piece-by-piece, with its properties becoming increasingly strong by the charge, and she can have it attack before it is complete. The earliest stages are limited to zoning and body-blocking, but by the final stage, it has outstanding HP, speed, power, and range. After it is complete, Zelda will also be able to move freely, while the Phantom will attack automatically after about a second if it is not manually released, granting Zelda much flexibility during this window. Phantom Slash forms the basis of Zelda's kit and is designed to compensate for Zelda's lackluster neutral, with its speed, power, and mixup potential allowing her to control space, cover options, pressure, zone, and trap. Its main weakness is that it cannot be charge-canceled, requiring Zelda to commit to either an early release or waiting until she is actionable. In addition, if she enters hitstun at any point before releasing the Phantom, it falls apart.

Outside Phantom Slash, the rest of her special moves take inspiration from the spells of the three Golden Goddesses that Link can use in Ocarina of Time. Her neutral special, Nayru's Love, is a reflector that doubles as a melee attack; it has a long duration and hits on both sides of her, with full intangibility from frames 4-13 of the move, allowing it to beat out moves, disrupt strings, two-frame, and edgeguard. However, the multi-hits can be inconsistent, and it is laggy, making it highly punishable. Din's Fire, her side special, is a slow ball of fire that becomes stronger and faster the farther it travels. While the explosion has a powerful sweetspot, its slow startup and predictable trajectory make it easy to avoid; instead, it is mostly used to gimp opponents with low resources. Her up special, Farore's Wind, is an outstanding offensive teleport. It is difficult to edgeguard and to two-frame due to its intangibility, omnidirectional distance, and large, strong hitboxes. Like Palutena's Warp, she can avoid the move's ending lag by edge canceling, which grants her access to otherwise impossible movement options. It is also a reliable out-of-shield option, as the first hit is fast and can optionally combo into the powerful reappearance hitbox. It can work situationally as a burst option to punish laggy options or anti-zone from a distance. While having unique uses in their own rights, her specials can be strategically used with each other for creative setups and KOs.

Zelda has a good range for her grab, with her pivot grab being one of the most disjointed in the game. While having a notably slow startup, they have a great reward in her throws. Forward throw is good at setting up edge guarding and ledge traps, while back and up throw are excellent kill throws and among the strongest of their kind. Down throw is a reliable combo starter into neutral aerial or Lightning Kick at lower percents, and is even a possible third kill throw into the latter at mid percents. All her throws can lead into a set-up Phantom with proper timing for combos or KO confirms, though forward and down throw are the most practical.

Despite her strengths, Zelda has significant weaknesses. Chief among them is her poor mobility, which hampers her ability to approach and move around safely. Her initial dash, for instance, is tied for the second laggiest in the game at 15 frames, which makes her unable to shield and rather vulnerable whenever she wants to move faster than walking. She also has a low ground speed, air acceleration, falling speed, and gravity, leaving her with committal jumps, a slow, telegraphed approach, and a risky neutral game. These mobility issues dampen the effectiveness of her moveset; for example, many of her safe-on-shield or finishing moves, like her forward tilt, forward smash, Lightning Kicks, and down aerial, require precise timing and spacing that is difficult to position given how slow she is. Her floatiness makes her air-to-ground transition poor and exacerbates the downsides of her already clunky aerials; as her aerials are also laggier than average, she cannot take exploit her long air time in the same way fighters with excellent aerial combat like Ness can. Since she is tall and floaty with no safe landing options or mixups, she is very vulnerable to getting juggled and ledge trapped, contributing to one of the worst disadvantages in the game and compounding her already poor endurance from her light weight.

Other issues include poor range on her normals, limiting their utility. The transcendent priority of most of her moves is a double-edged sword; while improving their offense, they give her a special weakness against projectiles and disjoints. In particular, aerials by default do not clank, except with projectiles, which they can destroy; however, the entirety of Zelda's neutral and up aerials, as well as the sweetspots of her Lightning Kicks, are transcendent, effectively providing none of the benefits but with all the downsides. The few aerial hitboxes that can protect her against projectiles are subpar: her kicks’ sourspots (which only deal 4%-5%), or the single-frame clean hit of down aerial. Zelda also has consistency issues (namely neutral aerial, Nayru's Love, and some of the windboxes of Phantom) and extremely weak sourspots, both of which make her punishable on hit relatively often. Her combo game is polarized and often subpar, as many of her moves have too much lag or unfavorable launch angles and knockback values for reliable follow-ups or wide combo windows. Due to this, she partially relies on Phantom to land stray KOs or start or finish combos for damage-racking. All her special moves have exploitable weaknesses, as they are all committal and can be punished hard if not used correctly. With correct timing and spacing around the Phantom's possible attack ranges, opponents can punish Zelda by reading when she will use the move and preemptively closing in. If there is space, the opponent can also retreat to disengage, with Zelda not being able to do much about it except gaining some stage control. Especially against mobile characters, this forces her to play with her risky, short-ranged neutral tools and subpar mobility.

Among favorable matchups, Zelda excels against slower characters with poor ground and aerial approaches where Phantom Slash can effectively wall them out (Ice Climbers, Kirby), against large characters that become combo fodder and easy targets for her normally strict sweetspots and combos, especially those without safe options on shield, enabling easy punishes with her deadly out of shield options (King Dedede), and against poor recoveries that are very susceptible to her semi-spikes and edgeguarding moves (Ganondorf). Zelda's weaknesses cause her to struggle against quick opponents who can outbox her and/or exploit her poor movement to bait out her options and keep her in disadvantage (Fox, Sonic, Greninja, Zero Suit Samus), against characters who can out-zone and out-camp her with tools that are fast, dwarf the Phantom's range and/or can pierce through it (Simon, Mega Man, Min Min), and against characters with large disjoints who can exploit her transcendent priority (Cloud, Mythra).

Overall, Zelda's strengths include impressive kill power spread broadly across her moveset, fast and powerful out-of-shield options, and good stage control and ledge trapping with Phantom setups. Her weaknesses in mobility, range, frame data, consistency, and sweetspot issues require her to be precise with how she spaces her attacks and to make the most out of Phantom ledge traps with proper reads and option coverage. She must be creative in her approaches to overcome her mobility issues when she does not have a lead, and in mixing up what she does to get out of a disadvantage due to her floaty nature and lack of safe landing options.

Changes from Super Smash Bros. 4

Zelda had historically and consistently been regarded as one of the worst characters (and, at one point in Super Smash Bros. 4, the overall worst) in previous games, due to her combination of underwhelming frame data as a whole, a lackluster special moveset, bad hitbox placements, and an undesirable mix of attributes (slow, light, tall, and floaty). While SSB4 had brought updates to her offensive game, her weaknesses remained, causing her to remain unviable. Likely as a result of being poorly regarded in previous games, Zelda has been significantly buffed overall in the transition to Ultimate.

Zelda's moveset overall has improved. Her Lightning Kicks have slightly better autocancels, making them more usable; forward tilt, down tilt, and dash attack have less ending lag, improving her boxing game. Forward aerial is now as fast as back aerial. Examples of significantly stronger moves include forward tilt, back throw, and up throw, all of which are now among the strongest of their kind. Hitbox improvements include up aerial, which is larger with a new late hit, and her dash attack, Lightning Kicks, and down aerial, all of whose sweetspots are larger. Her special moveset in particular, considered among the most situational in previous games, has seen various improvements. Din's Fire no longer causes helplessness, has an increased duration, and has a larger sweetspot, making it more usable, albeit still situational. Farore's Wind has faster startup and execution and reduced vulnerability, making it a more effective out of shield and punish option; it has more precise angles for reappearance to follow opponent DI, making the "elevator" combo more likely to connect, while also being less unsafe if it whiffs. Phantom Slash is, however, arguably by far her greatest buffed move from Smash 4. It has been heavily reworked to possess more stages with a wider variety of attack ranges, improving its zoning usage, and a new last stage allows Zelda to set it as an independent trap, allowing for intricate setups and combos. It is also much faster, in particular, no longer having a special cooldown if destroyed, allowing it to be used much more frequently.

Additionally, Zelda benefits disproportionately from some of the universal changes. Her horizontal movement has been improved in her increased run speed, air speed, air acceleration, and initial dash. The universal 3-frame jumpsquats improve her noticeably, as she used to have one of the slowest ones; her very powerful out of shield options also become much better. Altogether, the gap in mobility between her and the rest of the cast has been slightly tightened. With the removal of teching grounded spikes, down aerial is by far her most improved combo starter, giving Zelda a plethora of untechable combos and kill confirms. With her excellent recovery, the new limits to air dodges also benefit her off-stage game more than average.

However, Zelda has received many significant nerfs as well, most notably to the hitboxes and combo game of her normals. Neutral attack is drastically smaller and is no longer safe on shield, nor has consistent combo potential, removing one of her best neutral and spacing tools. Down tilt is much smaller and has a considerably worse launch angle. Neutral aerial has been nerfed greatly by the autolink removal and lower knockback, harming the looping hits' consistency, completely removing their drag-down combos, and making the launch direction drastically more difficult to control. Down throw's increase in knockback scaling, combined with its more horizontal launch angle, removes its 50/50s at high percents. Overall, many of her old damage-racking options and kill confirms have been weakened or outright removed.

Other nerfs include her forward tilt, which is much more precise due to its slower startup, narrower hitboxes, and the sweetspot losing highest priority and being drastically harder to land; the move is often weaker on average despite the damage buffs. Down aerial's late hit is worse at gimping due to its smaller hitboxes. Zelda's dash and pivot grabs, already below average in speed, have received even more startup, although both of them have less ending lag. Farore's Wind is weaker, making it worse at early KOs, cannot travel as far, and is much harder to edge cancel with, hindering one of her movement options; there is also less time to angle the teleport, slightly making it harder to combo into itself.

Although Zelda benefits from some of the changes to the game's engine, other changes have impaired her as well. The changes to jostling have made the below-average sizes of her hitboxes more salient. The new knockback speed-up effect further limits her already nerfed combo moves, as it counteracts her mobility buffs. The universally increased traction makes her edge cancels much harder and reduces shield pushback; together with the reduction of aerials' shieldstun, it affects her set of aerials among the most, as they have high damage values; this partially cancels out their landing lag buffs. Her air dodges are also now much laggier than average, which worsens her disadvantage state.

Overall, Zelda's moveset has been enhanced from previous installments, making her strengths more defined, especially around Phantom Slash as the new crux of her gameplan. However, nerfs to her combo tools, hitboxes, consistency, and precision have tempered her buffs by effectively transferring many of her other moves' usages and strengths to Phantom, centralizing her playstyle around the reworked move. Zelda also retains many of her previous issues from Smash 4, with punishable/unsafe sourspots, and the combination of being slow, light, tall, and floaty. Game updates have brought her moderate improvements, mostly making several moves across the board even stronger, but haven't alleviated her biggest issues. As a result, while Zelda fares notably better than in previous installments, she still underperforms compared to the rest of the cast.

Aesthetics

• Zelda's appearance is based on her design from The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, and A Link Between Worlds, with her overall design being a combination of the two. Her slightly smaller eyes, red necklace, more detailed epaulets, belt, and bracers, and the white dress are from A Link to the Past, while her diadem, bangs, and the pink dress are from A Link Between Worlds. The color scheme of her Twilight Princess design (which was her default in Brawl and Smash 4) is now the basis for an alternate costume.
  • Consequently, Zelda's hair and the jewel of her crown are once again blonde and red respectively, as opposed to brown and blue respectively, with the former being no longer tied at the bottom, similar to her predecessor in Melee; her eyes are larger; her epaulets are smaller; she wears a crimson, gem-like necklace; a sleeved, white dress with a cape and a sleeveless, pink dress with a yellow, Triforce embroidery, as opposed to a purple bodice and a white silk skirt; a more traditional, crimson belt with golden ornaments instead of a gold metallic belt with a tapestry; pants under her dress; bracers with being bare-handed instead of gloves; and open toe high heels instead of boots.
  • Zelda now has physics for her cape as a result.
  • Zelda has an updated Palutena's Guidance conversation to coincide with the design change.
• Many of Zelda's alternate costumes have been altered:
  • The skirts of her red and blue costumes are now white, instead of maroon and navy, respectively.
  • Her black costume now features a purple gradation at the edges of the sleeve and the skirt.
  • The skirt of her Ocarina of Time-inspired costume is now lavender and violet, instead of white and dark purple, better matching the coloration of the original.
• The majority of Zelda's animations have been significantly altered, including her standing pose, idle poses, and walking animations. These changes depict her as very cheerful and somewhat mischievous, making her far more expressive when compared to her SSB4 incarnation, who rarely showed any emotion.
• Zelda always faces the screen regardless of which direction she turns, causing all of her animations to be mirrored.
• All of Zelda's taunts have been altered:
  • Her up taunt is entirely new; she draws a cross pattern with magic akin to her grab from her fingertips, uttering a short grunt similar to Daisy's down taunt.
  • Her side taunt has a faster and flashier animation.
  • Her down taunt is a more casual and joyful wave.
• Zelda hangs onto ledges with one hand.
• Zelda's dress has independent physics. She now also has cape physics due to her design change.
• Many of Zelda's attacks produce brighter, flashier magical effects.
• All of Zelda's victory poses are completely new:
  • For the left-inputted pose, she conjures a small flame out of her finger and swirls it around playfully, akin to Lucas's right-inputted victory pose.
  • For the right-inputted pose, she summons the Phantom armor and proudly poses in front of it.
  • For the up-inputted pose, she emits magic out of two fingers and points at the screen.
• Due to receiving new voice clips, Zelda is significantly more vocal overall:
  • She vocalizes in all of her taunts, and victory poses, ranging from giggling during her down taunt and new up-inputted victory pose, a Kiai noise during her side taunt, and a soft sign during her new right-inputted pose.
  • Zelda vocalizes upon waking up from sleep status when not suffering from any knockback, similar to a few other characters such as Palutena and Cloud. She shares this addition with Link, Ganondorf and Wolf.
  • In general, Zelda sounds significantly more dynamic, exaggerated, and louder than her predecessors, in a similar vein to Pit and Ike in their transition from Brawl. For instance, her attack and knockback voice clips are louder compared to their Brawl/Smash 4 counterparts, while stun and sleeping voice clips are quieter and longer.

Attributes

• Like all characters, Zelda's jumpsquat takes 3 frames to complete (down from 6).
• Zelda runs faster (1.3 → 1.43).
  • Her initial dash speed is also much faster (1.6 → 1.958). This improves her approach on the ground and gives her an above-average foxtrot.
• Zelda walks slightly faster (0.87 → 0.914).
• Zelda's air speed is slightly faster (1.04 → 1.092).
• Zelda's traction is much higher (0.054 → 0.116).
• Zelda's full hop has less air time (62 frames → 57). This allows her to land faster, but reduces her window to use aerials.
• Forward roll grants less intangibility (frames 4-17 → 4-15).
• Back roll has more startup with less intangibility (frames 4-17 → 5-16), and more ending lag (FAF 31 → 36).
• Spot dodge has less ending lag (FAF 28 → 27).
• Spot dodge grants less intangibility (frames 3-18 → 3-17).
• Air dodge grants more intangibility (frames 3-28 → 3-30).
• Air dodge has significantly more ending lag (FAF 34 → 57).

Ground attacks

• Neutral attack:
  • It has significantly less startup lag (frame 11 → 4), now being her fastest move and no longer being the slowest neutral attack in the game.
  • The third hit has been removed. Combined with the move's faster startup, this makes the move much less safe on shield and eliminates its combo potential at low percents.
    • However, neutral attack has gained a rapid jab with a finisher, which can be transitioned into after the second hit. This partially compensates for the lost third hit by having similar damage output and higher KO potential.
  • The first two hits deal less damage (3% → 2.5%). With the removal of the third hit, it deals much less total damage (11% → 5%).
  • The first hit lasts for 2 frames, up from 1.
  • The first two hits have a lower hitlag multiplier (1× → 0.6×), which, with the removal of the third hit, makes the move execute faster on hit and harder to react to.
  • They have more horizontal launch angles (361°/140°/140° → 361°/361°/180°), with only the outermost hitbox sending inward now.
    • The outermost hit uses a separate outward angle (361°) for non-fighter targets, preventing Zelda from launching incoming items and projectiles toward herself.
    • Due to the inner two hits both using the Sakurai angle, they can now jab lock and trip until high percents. The outermost hit can do so at any percent due to never lifting opponents off the ground.
  • It no longer has set knockback (40/30 set/100 scaling → 25 base/35/30/20 scaling (hit 1), 40/25 base/25/20/25 scaling (hit 2)). The second hit has gained a hitstun modifier of 2.
    • This makes the inner hits deal more knockback at high percents, giving them jab cancel setups.
    • Compared to the inner hits, the outermost hit has notably lower knockback, making it negative on hit until high percents and unable to jab cancel until unrealistically extreme percents. This makes the move riskier to use without transitioning into the rapid jab, and makes its jab cancel ability inconsistent.
    • The knockback scaling eventually makes the move fail to connect fully, though this only occurs at extreme percents.
  • It has smaller hitboxes (3.2u/3.2u/4u (hits 1-2), 3.6u/3.6u/6u (hit 3) → 2.4u/2.4u/3.2u (hit 1), 3u/3.2u/3.5u (hit 2)). They are positioned closer to Zelda (z-offset 5.5u/9.5u/13u (all hits) → 4u/7u/10u (hit 1), 5u/8u/11.5u (hit 2)), drastically reducing the move's horizontal range and spacing utility.
    • The hitboxes are positioned lower (y-offset 12.5u (all) → 12u/12u/11.8u (hit 1), 11.8u/11.8u/11.5u (hit 2)), worsening their range above Zelda while not improving their reach below due to their smaller sizes.
    • However, there is a new hitbox in front of Zelda's lower body, improving its ability to hit shorter opponents at point-blank range.
• Forward tilt:
  • It has more startup lag (frame 10 → 12).
  • It has a shorter total duration (FAF 38 → 37), effectively reducing the ending lag by 3 frames due to the increased startup.
  • Forward tilt no longer has a blind spot directly in front of Zelda. Instead, if she is close to another character, her lunge animation will push her backwards to allow the hitbox to connect.
  • It uses five small hitboxes (2.1u/2.2u/2.3u/2.4u/2.5u) instead of three medium-sized ones (3u/3.5u/4u). This makes it much narrower, reducing its vertical range.
    • However, the outer hitbox is positioned farther out (x-offset 3.5u → 6.2u), improving its horizontal disjoint.
  • It deals more damage (12% → 15% (sweetspot), 10% → 11.5% (sourspot), which with its lower ending lag makes it safer on shield.
    • The knockback was not fully compensated on the sweetspot (50 base/88 scaling → 72/69), significantly increasing its KO potential, especially near the horizontal blast zone.
    • The sourspot has more base knockback (50 → 72), but significantly less knockback scaling (88 → 68). With its higher damage, its KO potential is slightly higher overall, especially near the horizontal blast zone, but is slightly worse from across stage.
  • The three sourspot hitboxes take priority over the two sweetspot hitboxes, making the sweetspots much harder to land, especially with the aforementioned size reduction.
  • The inner sweetspot hitbox has the same sound effect as the sourspots, despite having identical strength to the outer sweetspot.
• Up tilt:
  • Up tilt has a longer hitbox duration (frames 7-18 → 7-19), allowing it to hit opponents lying down.
  • The outermost hitbox is larger (5u → 5.5u), improving its range.
• Down tilt:
  • Down tilt has less ending lag (FAF 25 → 22).
  • It has 3 small unextended hitboxes (2.6u/2.6u/2.6u) instead of 1 medium-sized extended one (3.6u). Instead of being attached to her leg, they are now static hitboxes positioned closer to each other. Overall this notably reduces its range.
  • It sends opponents at a much lower angle (80° → 62°), and has less base knockback (20 → 15), but more knockback scaling (120 → 125). This greatly worsens its combo potential at low and high percents, and no longer has a guaranteed set-up into up aerial.
    • However, this allows it to combo more reliably into a dash attack and forward aerial at mid percents in combination with its lower ending lag and Zelda's faster jumpsquat.
• Dash attack:
  • Dash attack's sweetspot is larger (2.2u → 2.8u) and is now extended (z-offset: 12.8 → 12.6-13.2). Its other hitboxes are also larger (5u (sourspot)/4.8u (late hit) → 5.2u/5u), but their horizontal ranges were compensated on the far side (z-offset 7.8-13.8 → 7.8-13.6). Overall this improves the move's range, especially for the sweetspot.
  • The late hit has a longer duration (frames 8-10 → 8-12).
  • Dash attack has less ending lag (FAF 40 → 36).
• Forward smash:
  • The looping hits have been moved farther out (Z offset: 8/16 → 9/17), as has its final hitboxes (Z offset: 9.5/16 → 10.5/17), increasing its horizontal range while not introducing a blind spot due to the new jostle mechanics.
  • The looping hits use an autolink angle (25°/165° → 366°) and have higher set knockback (40/50 → 60/60), improving their consistency.
    • This indirectly hinders the move's KO potential slightly due to the inner hitbox pulling opponents into itself, rather than pushing outward (i.e. closer to the side blast zone).
  • The final hit is slightly larger (5.5u/6u → 5.7u/6u).
• Up smash:
  • The looping hits are larger (3.5u/3.5u/3.5u/4.2u → 3.5u/4u/4u/4.6u) and are positioned higher (y-offset 11u/17u/17u/18u → 12u/18u/18u/19u), improving its range.
    • However, this slightly decreases its lower reach. Combined with jostling, it is more difficult to punish lower opponents out of shield.
  • The looping hits use continuous hitboxes with a rehit rate, significantly reducing the gaps between its hits (frame 9/12/15/18/25/28/31 → 9-23/25-32 (rehit rate 4)).
    • However, this causes it to have only six looping hits, down from seven, reducing up smash's maximum damage (15.4% → 14.6%).
  • The side looping hits use different and higher launch angles for grounded and aerial opponents (200° → 100° (grounded)/160° (aerial)) and have different set knockback (40 → 60 (grounded)/20 (aerial)), allowing them to connect more reliably against aerial opponents, but no longer pulling in opponents standing on either side of her as easily.
  • The first four looping hits have lower knockback scaling (105 → 100), and the top looping hit has lower set knockback (40 → 20).
  • The final hit has more knockback scaling (214 → 222), improving its KO potential.
  • The side hitboxes for the final hit are smaller (7.5u/7.5u → 6.5u/6.5u).
• Down smash:
  • Down smash has higher knockback scaling (86 (front)/96 (back) → 89/100), improving its KO potential.

Aerial attacks

• All aerials have less landing lag (19 frames → 12 (neutral), 23 → 15 (forward), 25 → 16 (back), 19 → 12 (up), 18 → 12 (down)).
• Lightning Kicks and down aerial have unique sound effects when used.
• Neutral aerial:
  • Neutral aerial has altered hitlag (1× (all) → 0.6× (looping hits)/2× (last hit)).
  • Neutral aerial is vulnerable to SDI again (0× → 0.8× (looping hits), 1× (last hit)).
  • The looping hits use weight-independent knockback.
  • The looping hits now use different hitboxes for aerial versus grounded opponents.
  • On aerial opponents, instead of 2 medium hitboxes, the looping hits now consist of 4 small extended hitboxes (4.7u/4.7u → 1.5u/1.5u/1.5u/1.5u). This gives them much less range in the z-axis, being significantly narrower than even a Lightning Kick sweetspot. Additionally, due to being extended, they no longer interpolate.