Roy (SSBU): Difference between revisions

When ''Ultimate'' released, Roy looked promising in the meta due to the universal decreased landing lag on aerials and ability to use tilts out of a dash, which drastically fixed one of his biggest weaknesses. Along with his excellent mobility and some of the strongest KO power in the game, many professionals believed that Roy could potentially be a top-tier character. However, people also noticed that his [[Echo Fighter]], {{SSBU|Chrom}}, despite having less power and a significantly worse recovery than Roy, was more consistent due to his lack of sourspots, making him better at spacing than Roy. Chrom also had a notorious sacrificial KO move from his forward aerial to Soaring Slash. Although the latter was eventually removed, Chrom was still widely agreed to be one of the best characters in the game and was considered to be better than Roy in the early metagame. Despite this, Roy has achieved many noteworthy results thanks to players such as {{Sm|Goblin}} and {{Sm|Flow|p=France}}, and is still thought to be significantly improved from ''Smash 4'', with many players ranking him as a high-tier or even top-tier character.

Roy's reputation continued to improve during and after the end of the online metagame. {{Sm|Kola}}, a rising star prior to the pandemic, made waves during the online metagame and ultimately placed 1st on the [[Wi-Fi Warrior Rank v5]]. He maintained this momentum after offline play returned, and consistently placed top 8 at majors. Other Roy players such as Goblin and {{Sm|HIKARU}} also see strong results during this period, leading to an increase in Roy's representation, especially in the United States: Roy had the second-highest character usage by the end of 2021,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zTKrF1HOv70Pp8xdJKrRQy3QiMYKLTCstoVNgxymt0o/edit#gid=0|title=OrionRank Ultimate: Eclipse character usage}}</ref> and continues to be a top 10 character representation-wise in the following year.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1gRlzy4z_dpqb2ZRhGoqtbDcuvUKz_ROsMZHGegon53M/edit#gid=329450080|title=OrionRank 2022 character usage}}</ref> With Chrom's decline as a result to a shrinking playerbase, many players such as {{Sm|Dabuz}} and {{Sm|Tweek}} consider Roy to be one of the best, if not the best, Fire Emblem characters in the game. As such, Roy was ranked 8th on the first tier list as a top tier character.

Following the first tier list, Roy's representation saw a sudden decline at the top level, attributed to Kola's declining performances and months-long hiatus, Goblin's severe decline, and HIKARU's retirement from competitive ''Smash''. Although Roy remained a popular character overall, on the other hand there were few Roy players that could match the three's performances, as {{Sm|alice}} remained rather inconsistent while Flow did not become more prominent until the latter half of 2023. Finally, Kola's results following his return were better than his results right before his hiatus, however they were still worse than his results at his peak. This decline led to Roy dropping out of the top 10 in terms of representation by mid-2023, the first time Roy was outside the top 10 since the early metagame, and this drop, alongside many players questioning whether Roy's hilt sweetspot was becoming more of a problem, led players to believe Roy was overrated on the first tier list. This view was reflected in the second tier list, where Roy dropped 11 spots to 19th in the A-tier, tied with Chrom and {{SSBU|Ken}} as the largest drops from the first tier list.