Roy (SSB4)


 * ''For information on the playable Koopaling, see Bowser Jr. (SSB4).


 * Roy Seals the Deal!

Roy (, Roy) is a playable character in Super Smash Bros. 4. Initially leaked via data mining of update 1.0.6, Roy was formally announced alongside during a Nintendo Direct on June 14th, 2015, and was made available that same day as downloadable content alongside  and Ryu. reprises his role as Roy's voice actor from Super Smash Bros. Melee, providing new voice clips that mimic the ones he recorded in the game.

Roy is ranked 41st out of 54 on the tier list, placing him in the E tier. This is roughly similar to Roy's low-tier placement in Melee, where he was ranked 21st out of 26. However, due to SSB4's tier structure, Roy is actually rendered as a mid-tier character.

Roy boasts good overall mobility and attack speed, owing to very fast dashing and air speeds, alongside fast-starting attacks that allow him to quickly react to openings. When coupled with the Binding Blade's highly damaging sweetspots, which are close to its hilt, he boasts impressive power and a number of strong KOing options at close range.

He also benefits from gameplay changes brought about by SSB4: the rage mechanic supplements his strong sweetspotted attacks, the changes to hitstun and shieldstun make his sweetspots significantly safer on hit, while the updated edge mechanics improve his recovery. Roy also has a varied combo game that is difficult to predict and grants him above average damage racking potential, with reliable combo starters from low to medium percents including forward and down throw, neutral attack, neutral and up aerial, and Double-Edge Dance.

Roy, however, is strongly held back by a poor approach, owing to his slow air acceleration and unsafe aerials that cannot autocancel in a short hop. On a related note, Roy is ineffective at spacing: despite having disjointed range, the Binding Blade' inconvenient sourspots force him to space his sweetspotted attacks dangerously close to opponents.

Roy's combo game is also flawed: his sweetspotted moves are ineffective at performing lengthy combos past medium percents, while his forward, back and down throws are heavily reliant on reads because of their very low hitstun. Finally, Roy suffers from a poor recovery: Blazer is predictable and covers very minimal vertical distance, while his very fast falling speed not only hinders his recovery, but also makes him susceptible to combos.

Due to the above factors, Roy has attained below-average tournament representation. Despite this, he has achieved some degree of competitive success, thanks to the likes of players such as, , and.

Attributes


Unlike in Melee, Roy is a semi-clone of, although he retains the attributes that differentiate the two. Compared to Marth, Roy sports the eleventh fastest dashing speed, the fourth fastest air speed, and the fifth fastest falling speed (7, 23, and 30 spots higher, respectively), alongside being 5 units heavier than Marth. Conversely, Roy walks significantly slower, being only above-average compared to Marth, while his air acceleration is among the bottom five. Finally, Roy's long extended dash-dance allows him to read and punish opponents accordingly. However, his laggy initial dash (17 frames) and turnaround animations give him a poor shield buffer out of his dash and turn. Overall, this places Roy's archetype as a speedy fast-faller with polarized, linear movement. Roy's mobility is considerably faster than Marth's in regard to movement speed and air-to-ground transitioning, but his aerial fluidity is significantly limited, preventing him from easily using retreating aerials like Marth, and makes his aerial approaches committal.

Apart from differences in attributes, many of Roy's attacks differ from Marth's by having separate animations, which in turn give his attacks completely altered hitbox sizes, frame values and mechanical differences. This grants him a individualized playstyle compared to Marth, made most notable by his inverse tipper: the Binding Blade deals more damage and knockback near its hilt, and much less at its blade's tip, which has very little KO potential compared to Marth's untippered Falchion. However, its inverse tipper is much larger than Falchion's tipper, and most of its attacks are less polarizing due to their possession of a "mediumspot" that is between both its sweetspot and sourspot. Roy's sword, along with his attributes, encourage a highly rewarding close-and-personal game with heavy emphasis on landing hits with his sword's larger sweetspot, and has little focus on distant spacing due to its ineffective sourspots.

Much like his overall mobility, almost all of Roy's attacks have quick start-up, and his aforementioned speed allows him to easily close the gap between himself and his opponent to make effective use of his inverse tipper. Coupled with his sweetspot's high damage, Roy has an above-average damage racking game once he finds an opening. His most versatile combo initiators are his neutral aerial (which has quick start-up, low landing lag, and a long-lasting hitbox) and his neutral attack (which starts at frame 5 and launches at a favorable angle), both of which can start combos into his throws and tilts. His up aerial starts on frame 5 and has a deceptively long-lasting hitbox that lasts until the sword trail ends, allowing a reverse sweetspotted up aerial to start medium percent combos into neutral aerial, back aerial, or Blazer, or a sourspot into Double-Edge Dance depending on the enemy's reaction. Finally, forward aerial has very early interruptibility, allowing it to be used as a retreating aerial while jumping backwards, can chain into itself up to two times if Roy moves at full speed and uses his second jump, and can be used for frame-trapping against air dodges if followed up with an up aerial. His down tilt is also a good spacing option, and is useful for shield stabbing and edgeguarding due to its semi-spike trajectory.

Tying in with his damage racking game are his throws, which launch at favorable angles for low-percent combos. Down and forward throws can chain into his neutral attack, dash attack, forward tilt, neutral aerial, Blazer and Double-Edge Dance. As Roy's combo-initiating moves can often lead straight into a grab, it is common for Roy to deal high amounts of damage through precise reads at low percents, either from an attack into a grab, or through chaining a throw into an attack, then re-grabbing. While the low hitstun of his throws prevent true follow-ups at higher percents, they also force opponents into tech-chase and air dodge scenarios, allowing Roy to condition opponents into reacting. Up throw is also able to KO outright at very high percents.

The power of Roy's sweetspotted moves also grant him an array of KOing options that are capable of KOing impressively early. While on-stage, his best KOing options are his forward and up tilts, forward and up smashes, and Blazer, due to their quick start-up and high power. His smash attacks, in particular, are immensely powerful; forward smash is one of the strongest of its kind and can be used for hard punishes at as low as 40%, up smash is capable of KOing as low as 100%, and the sweetspotted first hit of down smash can KO at around 120%. Although Roy's offense thrives while he is on-stage, his fast air speed and disjointed range grant him an effective off-stage presence. His forward, back and down aerials each have distinct perks apart from their power: the former two are quick and have wide arcs, while the latter is a powerful meteor smash when sweetspotted. Although he is a middleweight, Roy is also one of the better users of rage, as his very quick falling speed grants him impressive on-stage endurance and allows him to further enhance the knockback of his already powerful moves.

Finally, each of Roy's special moves possess respectable utility. Flare Blade is a deadly edgeguarding option, especially while on-stage, thanks to its fearsome power even when uncharged, large hitbox, and deceptively low ending lag. The latter allows it to be used as a mindgame to punish edge getups, while its speed can amplify Roy's sub-par aerial mobility by granting him an aerial B-reverse. Double-Edge Dance is effective for damage racking, catching dodges, and pressuring shields; its final upward and forward hits can also KO outright. Blazer is an excellent out of shield option, grants both brief super armor on start-up and high power when grounded, can stage spike careless opponents who attempt to edgeguard Roy, and can be a true combo from his down throw at 0%, or a neutral attack at specific percents as a KO combo. Lastly, his Counter is one of the strongest counterattacks in the game, as its 1.35× damage multiplier makes it devastating when used against a powerful attack.

However, Roy is hindered by a slew of flaws. Although he is granted a powerful offense, making use of it is difficult in the first place despite his remarkable mobility, mainly due to several reasons. His very fast air speed is offset by his very slow air acceleration, making his aerial approach highly committal in general, much like 's. In addition, while his inverse tipper is one of his greatest strengths, it also forces him to fight at close range to be utilized at its fullest: only his sweetspots cause enough shield stun to prevent punishment, and when coupled with his attacks having overall high ending lag (or in the case of his aerials, the inability to autocancel with a short hop), this results in him having to space attacks dangerously close against shields and negating the benefits of his disjointed sword. Finally, his range is below average for a swordsman, and when coupled with the Sword of Seal's low-utility sourspots, Roy's approach and spacing game is poor despite his good mobility, since his only quick, low-risk options that can be used to close in and pressure the opponent are his neutral aerial and falling up aerial.

Roy's combo game, while powerful at low percents, become inconsistent from medium percents and onward. Although possible, Roy's sourspots are very unreliable for creating combos unlike Marth's, as they require extreme precision and only work at specific percents. His sweetspots are similar, due to them sending opponents too far for actual combos and only being effective for outright KOing at high percents. His throws also lack any true followups due to their very low hitstun: his forward throw can be easily teched, while his down throw can be air dodged out of. Overall, this makes Roy potent at damage racking, but his lack of KO setups puts him at a significant disadvantage when trying to end stocks, as it leaves him only with hard punishes.

Lastly, Roy's offstage endurance is notoriously poor. His very quick falling speed makes him extremely susceptible to combos, 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 notoriously ineffective despite his impressive mobility: although it offers excellent protection, can be angled, and covers a decent amount of horizontal distance, it covers little vertical distance and is predictable. When coupled by his very quick falling speed, he is highly susceptible to meteor smashes, and even a sufficiently strong semi-spike can launch him too far away to recover. Additionally, players unaccustomed to his falling speed will quickly find that any misused aerial off-stage will send him too far to recover.

Although tournaments do not currently allow custom moves, it should be noted that Roy does not have any due to being a DLC character. As such, he must not only utilize his own special moves properly, but also adapt as best as possible against characters that possess their own custom moves.

Overall, Roy's strengths are on par with his weaknesses. While his character archetype is commonly viewed as being in the rushdown and/or glass cannon categories, he cannot effectively function in either role due to his poor recovery, unimpressive range for a swordsman, and vulnerability to combos. Instead, his optimal playstyle consists of limited aggression: capitalizing on enemy openings with his excellent mobility, and pressuring them with both his powerful sweetspots and effective combo game, but approaching cautiously and spacing his sweetspots safely enough to circumvent his flaws. As a result of these traits, Roy has sparse tournament representation and results at high-level play, although he has nevertheless achieved some competitive success, thanks to players such as and.

Changes from Super Smash Bros. Melee
Roy is frequently placed within a group of characters (,, , and ) that are the most noticeably reworked veterans in SSB4. In Roy's case, several of his moves were de-cloned from in a similar vein to  and  in Brawl, to the point that he is now a semi-clone. Although Roy received a mix of buffs and nerfs in the transition from Melee to SSB4, he has overall been buffed.

Among Roy's buffs are his greatly improved mobility, now having a much faster dashing speed and one of the fastest air speeds in the game, as well as his moveset being notably more rewarding than in Melee: most of his moves are different from Marth, such as his new neutral attack, forward and up tilts, dash attack and down aerial, most of which have reduced lag, improved hitbox placements, and increased power, improving his close-ranged offense and combo game, and giving him more reliable KO moves. His damage output is much higher, and his sweetspotted attacks are considerably more powerful, giving him a bevy of new KOing options, which generally alleviates his main weakness from Melee. His attack speed is faster overall, with his aerials in particular having significantly reduced ending and landing lag, L-canceling notwithstanding. The addition of rage boosts his KO power even further, while his heavier weight allows him to use it quite effectively. He also has much better endurance thanks to a his much higher weight. Lastly, Roy's recovery is generally better, thanks to Blazer's improved horizontal distance, his faster air speed, and the introduction of edge trumping.

However, Roy has also received several nerfs. Roy now stands at Marth's height, which enlarges his hurtbox, though his attacks have much shorter ranges and hitbox durations in spite of this, forcing him to fight at a much closer range, exacerbating one of his key weaknesses in Melee. For the most part, Roy is also harmed by the post-Melee gameplay changes: the loss of wavedashing and L-canceling, as well as the weakening of dash-dancing, noticeably worsen his approach. The general increase in range for other characters since Melee, such as with and, also indirectly hurts him. Double-Edge Dance's first hit has almost completely lost its ability to stall his descent due to his faster falling speed, which hurts his recovery despite its improvements. Lastly, Roy's heavier weight makes him easy to combo despite falling speeds being slower in SSB4 than they were in Melee.

Overall, Roy's strengths are much more pronounced than in Melee, though he retains most of the same weaknesses as well. While his sweetspotted attacks are considerably more rewarding, he still has to fight up close in order to rack up damage, while his sub-par endurance makes his playstyle risky. Despite Roy having been overall buffed, other veterans were also buffed to varying degrees, which downplays his strengths in SSB4's metagame.

Ground attacks

 * Neutral attack:
 * Forward tilt:
 * Up tilt:
 * Down tilt:
 * Dash attack:
 * Forward smash:
 * Up smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Down tilt:
 * Dash attack:
 * Forward smash:
 * Up smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Dash attack:
 * Forward smash:
 * Up smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Forward smash:
 * Up smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Up smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Up smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Down smash:

Aerial attacks

 * Neutral aerial:
 * Forward aerial:
 * Back aerial:
 * Up aerial:
 * Down aerial:
 * Forward aerial:
 * Back aerial:
 * Up aerial:
 * Down aerial:
 * Back aerial:
 * Up aerial:
 * Down aerial:
 * Up aerial:
 * Down aerial:
 * Down aerial:

Throws/other attacks

 * Pummel:
 * Up throw:
 * Down throw:
 * Floor attack:
 * Up throw:
 * Down throw:
 * Floor attack:
 * Down throw:
 * Floor attack:
 * Floor attack:
 * Floor attack:
 * Floor attack:

Special moves

 * Flare Blade:
 * Double-Edge Dance:
 * Blazer:
 * Counter:
 * Critical Hit:
 * Double-Edge Dance:
 * Blazer:
 * Counter:
 * Critical Hit:
 * Blazer:
 * Counter:
 * Critical Hit:
 * Blazer:
 * Counter:
 * Critical Hit:
 * Counter:
 * Critical Hit:
 * Counter:
 * Critical Hit:
 * Critical Hit:
 * Critical Hit:
 * Critical Hit:
 * Critical Hit:
 * Critical Hit:

Update history
Roy has been slightly buffed via game updates. Update 1.1.0 gave Blazer additional hitboxes, making it easier to land. However, the same update reduced the damage outputs of its first and last hits, which slightly weakened its KO potential. The changes to shield mechanics brought about by updates 1.1.0 and 1.1.1 have made Roy's sweetspotted attacks much safer at the cost of his sourspotted attacks being unsafer, to the point where his semi-clone,, has safer attacks than both him and Marth. Lastly, update 1.1.4 decreased the landing lag on all of Roy's aerials, which improved his neutral and up aerials' combo potentials when they are SHFF'd, and decreased Double-Edge Dance's start-up and ending lag.

 1.1.0

 1.1.4

Moveset
For a gallery of Roy's hitboxes, see here.
 * For simplicity if, for example, Roy's blade does 6% damage while the tip does 4%, and the attack has no other hitboxes, it is written as 6%/4%.

Tier placement and history
Roy's initial perception among the community was very positive; players almost immediately recognized his powerful offense due to the prominent strengths of his sweetspotted attacks, heavily damaging throw set-ups, and significantly improved mobility. These views were especially noted because his semi-clone,, and by extension , were considered poor characters at the time. Despite his extremely low representation, which was unseen of a perceived high-tier character, most of the community believed that Roy was a viable character, with some claiming him to be the premier swordfighter in the game. Even so, his viability was also disputed due to his sparse tournament placements and difficulty in initiating combo setups. Furthermore, characters considered worse than him received a variety of buffs in later updates, with a corresponding increase in tournament results and representation than Roy, while his weaknesses were made much more apparent to the community. As such, opinions on Roy quickly started to change for the worse due to his vulnerability to combos, weak recovery, and an ineffective close-ranged playstyle due to his poor approach and unimpressive range. In spite of his flaws and lacking tournament presence, Roy was ranked 32nd on the first 4BR tier list, placing him at the top of the low-tier.

Unfortunately for Roy, update 1.1.4 granted Marth and Lucina major buffs that significantly increased their effectiveness, while Roy only gained minor landing lag decreases to his aerials. This resulted in them, especially Marth, achieving improved results from professionals and saw their opinions reassessed as those of a high-tier and a mid-tier character, respectively. Conversely, Roy remained a low-tier character due to the minimal effectiveness of his buffs from update 1.1.4. The lack of significant breakthroughs to his lackluster approaches and middling combo game only served to further damage Roy's negative perception, which saw Roy being ranked 50th on the second tier list, placing him at the bottom of the low-tier.

However, Roy players began more success afterwards, most notably with Ryo's placement at and, where he used Roy to place top 32 at both events. This helped improve opinions on Roy, who rose to 44th on the third tier list, placing him in the upper portion of the low-tier. Roy's results would improve even further after Cloudy's high placing of 9th at Smash Factor 6 while upsetting, 33rd at 2GGC: Fire Emblem Saga as well, reaching 7th with Roy as a secondary, and  placing 16th at 2GG Championship while defeating. Despite this, Roy remains ranked at 41st on the fourth and final tier list, though due to the expansion of the tiers, he is now ranked as a mid-tier character. Throughout the game’s competitive lifespan, Roy's standing relative to the cast was among divisive compared to most of the cast. While a number of top players consider his placement to be accurate due to his polarized toolkit causing him to struggle against numerous characters, many players agreed that Roy could potentially rise slightly higher thanks to his good power and mobility.

Most historically significant players
Any number following the Smasher name indicates placement on the PGR 100, which recognizes the official top 100 players in Super Smash Bros. 4 of all time.

See also: Category:Roy players (SSB4)


 * - The best Roy player in the world. Placed 9th at and 33rd at both  and  with wins over players such as  and.
 * (#12) - Used Roy as a secondary. Placed 5th at and 9th at  with a win over.
 * - The best Roy player in Europe. Placed 7th at, 9th at , and 25th at with wins over players such as  and . Ranked 30th on the European Smash 4 Power Rankings.
 * - The best Roy player in the United States. Placed 17th at and 25th at both  and  with wins over players such as, , and.
 * (#77) - Used Roy as a secondary to his Ike. Placed 9th at, 25th at , and 33rd at . He is also known for advancing Roy's metagame.

Trivia

 * Roy and are the only DLC characters to be released on the same day as their announcement.
 * Roy's pose in his official art is nearly identical to his pose in his official art for Melee.
 * Roy is the only one of the DLC veterans to not have had a trophy depicting him in the base game.
 * Aspects of Roy's sound design have been carried over from Melee:
 * All of his sourspotted attacks emit a punch/kick sound effect, instead of a slash sound effect.
 * He uses different voice clips when using battering items.
 * When he is dizzy, his corresponding voice clip loops constantly, instead of playing only once.
 * He uses more than one voice clip for his smash attacks.
 * He only has one voice clip for taking light knockback (shared with, , , and ).
 * He only has one voice clip upon being blast KO'd (also shared with Mewtwo, as well as and ).
 * Roy's up smash, Flame Sword, shares the same name as 's forward aerial.
 * Roy,, and are the only characters to speak Japanese in every regional version of SSB4.
 * Like Marth in his transition from Melee to Brawl, Roy's first and third victory poses have swapped quotes.
 * If Roy's on-screen appearance occurs on one of Distant Planet's leaf platforms, he will descend with the leaf, but the Binding Blade will remain stationary in the air until it returns to Roy once the battle actually starts.
 * Roy, Ryu, Cloud,, and 's voice clips are in much lower quality than the rest of the cast in.


 * Roy's new Final Smash is less powerful than his fully-charged Flare Blade.
 * Roy is one of two DLC characters to be made available for purchase the day of their reveal, with the other being Ryu.
 * Roy is one of only two characters in the Super Smash Bros. series to have the same name as another playable fighter, his counterpart being the Koopaling named Roy Koopa. This is referenced in an official image on the Super Smash Bros. 4 website.
 * Additionally, despite having the same name, the Announcer has two different voice clips for announcing Roy and Roy Koopa's names.
 * Roy is the only DLC fighter in the series to not have a projectile of any sort.