Hero's Bow

The Hero's Bow (, Hero's Bow), known as the Bow (, Bow and Arrow) in Melee, is Link's neutral special move in Super Smash Bros. Melee, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and Super Smash Bros. 4, as well as Toon Link’s neutral special move since Brawl. There are differences between Link and Toon Link's Hero Bows, though they both involve firing an arrow which is useful for stopping foes or camping, and holding the special button will greatly increase the range of the arrow fired.

Overview
As the name suggests, the move involves each Link incarnation staying in place and charging up an arrow. Once charged, the player can only hold the arrow in place or fire it; this may force stalemates if the opponent has a lasting reflector, such as Fox. The arrow gains power, range, and speed as it charges. A fully-charged arrow has great range and is thus useful for stopping approaches. However, all charge levels have passable knockback, though a fully-charged arrow is strong enough to KO a character in Sudden Death.

In Brawl, this move is notable for being used in the Quickdraw technique, allowing Link to fire an arrow with no startup lag.

Like most neutral special attacks, Link can turn around in midair if the backward direction is pressed right after the bow is taken out. However, if combined with the aforementioned Quickdraw technique, a glitch may occur in which Link points his bow in one direction, but the arrow is fired in the other direction. This can be avoided if the bow is initiated in the air just before Link touches the ground, instead of the same instant Link touches the ground.

Toon Link's arrows are slightly weaker and slower, but shoot at a very slight upward angle and are noticeably "floatier" than Link's. This causes them to travel further when uncharged and hang in the air for longer. The Hero's Bow in Brawl and SSB4 fire arrows that are faster than its Melee counterpart, even when uncharged.

Instead of the Hero's Bow, Young Link uses the Fire Bow instead.

Customization
Special Move customization was added in Super Smash Bros. 4. These are the variations:

Link

 * 1) Hero's Bow: Default.
 * 2) Power Bow: Greatly increases charge time and makes uncharged arrows do extremely low damage and drop right near Link's feet; a charged arrow however travels in a straight line, glows, and deals massive damage and knockback, to the point where it can KO at medium high percentages, giving Link a ranged KO option.
 * 3) Quickfire Bow: Arrows charge almost immediately, deal damage and can go straight through multiple targets, though they forsake damage and range, traveling a short distance before disappearing while doing set knockback. 2% uncharged, 8% fully charged.

Toon Link

 * 1) Hero's Bow: Default.
 * 2) Fire Arrow: Charges almost immediately. Shoots flaming arrows that deal extremely low damage on hit and travel only three character lengths when fully charged, but will stay in the ground and continue to burn for about two seconds, allowing Toon Link to use the flames as a pseudo-PK Fire. 2% damage minimum charged, 7% maximum, 6% damage when an enemy touches it on the ground.
 * 3) Piercing Arrow: Arrows fly straight and go through enemies and projectiles, at cost of distance and damage. 6% damage fully charged, 1% uncharged.

Origin
The bow is one of Link's main weapons in series. In The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Link could use s, as well as Ice and Light Arrows. In Melee, Link's bow is based on the Fairy Bow from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. In Brawl and SSB4, Link's Hero's Bow is derived from ' while Toon Link's is from '. The Quickfire Bow is a reference to the Light Arrows, as well as the bow having a quicker firing rate in the Zelda series than in Smash Bros.

Names in other languages
Arco del héroe