Zelda (SSBM): Difference between revisions

 

One of Zelda's strengths is her great KO power. Within the air, her forward and back aerials of the Lightning Kick can KO at as low as 50%, and her up air has a large hitbox that can also KO opponents. On the ground, Zelda's up tilt is surprisingly powerful, with its long duration and large radius allowing it to be a versatile move under most circumstances. Zelda's up and forward smash attacks are also powerful and they have high damage output thanks to their multiple hits.

 

 

 

However, Zelda is strongly held back by having one of the worst approach games in the game. On the ground, Zelda possesses the slowest dashing speed, a short wavedash, and a slow dash dance; combined with decidedly average range in her attacks, Zelda cannot effectively attack on the ground. Zelda doesn't fare much better in the air; despite her above average air speed, Zelda suffers from a low falling speed and a high short hop, leading to a very poor SHFFL. Zelda's lack of an effective projectile also prevents her from attacking from afar; [[Din's Fire]] is far too laggy, weak, and predictable to be an effective projectile, being completely useless under most circumstances. In platforms, however, Zelda fares better due to her quick movements from wavelanding and being somewhat flexible at transitioning there.  

 

 

 

 

 

Zelda also suffers from having generally situational specials (save [[Transform]]). Nayru's Love can only harm attackers in short ranges, and it has high ending lag and it doesn't protect her from attacks above her; therefore the move itself forces Zelda to read approaches in order to be effectively used. Din's Fire, as mentioned earlier, doesn't aid her approach at all and suffers from too much ending lag. The projectile itself is rather slow, predictable and also offers Zelda a very low reward for landing it. The attack also leaves her unable to move until she finishes the attack, leaving her defenseless until she finishes the move. [[Farore's Wind]], generally considered her best special move, possess some potential stall capabilities on the ledge, such as for edge cancelling techniques. It is also a great recovery tool since the distance covered with the teleport is in a league of its own; it covers such space that enables her to edgeguard opponents very far from the ledge. Also, it does require precise timing and knowledge to properly recover, since it can be easy for Zelda to miss-land onstage and potentially get punished, or worse, self-destruct. Finally, while reentering with Up B on the ground can be deceptively quick, the move has an awkward cooldown when reeintering airborne, which can be very easy for opponents to react.

Overall, Zelda emphasizes a defensive gameplan by trying to find openings for grabs, dash attacks, or lightning kicks. Players must be extremely precise on landing her finishing moves, as their fast startup and strong power can be offset by a difficulty and landing them. She must also try and use wavedashing as well as platforms as much as possible, as her low mobility can prove to be a burden when trying to fight in neutral or against disadvantageous situations. To find success amongst greater players, she is forced to bait out options and wait for an opponent to make a mistake, or else she will be overwhelmed by other foes.

Zelda performs the worst against characters who have much higher movement speed than her, most notably {{SSBM|Captain Falcon}}, and {{SSBM|Sheik}}. Ironically, Sheik is considered to be arguably her most troublesome matchup; Zelda has no recourse against Sheik's down throw, superior aerials/tilts, and needles, all of which contribute to her losing both the neutral and punish game. Also, Zelda has little to no ressources against Captain Falcon's dashdancing, making it one of the greatest tool against her. She similarly struggles with characters who can KO her off of the upper blast zones, exploit her abysmal approach, or edgeguard her with ease, such as {{SSBM|Marth}}, {{SSBM|Fox}}, or {{SSBM|Peach}}.

Although Zelda may possess a few small niches against some high-tier characters, such as {{SSBM|Peach}} and {{SSBM|Jigglypuff}}, her lightning kicks can KO unaware opponents, but most of them are difficult to land and these same characters can work around them and easily retaliate with their own vastly superior and consistent movesets. While Zelda’s slow falling speed may be beneficial in hindering certain strings, her large hurtbox makes it easier for other top-tiers to combo on her, negating the benefits off of her floatiness. Thus, such drawbacks require her to achieve multiple successful reads to hold equal footing against the majority of the cast.

Almost all of Zelda's supposed winning matchups are considered to be semi-viable in the current meta, and many of them actually have a few (albeit situational) tools to combat the best characters in the game, making them overall slightly better than her despite her advantages in the head-to-head. However, players have recognized that she does surprisingly well against the {{SSBM|Ice Climbers}}, due to her Lightning Kicks and down smash being great tools to separate them. {{SSBM|Luigi}}’s floaty physics work against him for similar reasons, with Zelda being able to outpace him in the aerial game. Her throw combos have improved against the species compared to before, able to rack up a surprising amount of damage and can punish them for lack of matchup experience. However, this requires Zelda to make hard reads and play very carefully to land a grab, which can be problematic given the fast-paced mechanics working against her favor. Against the rest of the cast, she has heavily struggled to develop significant breakthroughs against her unfavorable matchups due to her slow mobility, heavy difficulty in approaching, and lack of opportunities in landing her moves.