Link (SSBB)

Link in Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Universe	The Legend of Zelda
Other playable appearances	in SSB in Melee in SSB4
Availability	Starter
Final Smash	Triforce Slash
Tier	F (35)

“	A warrior from distant Hyrule. His sword and projectiles make him a versatile fighter.	”
—Brawl manual description

Link (リンク, Link) returns as a playble character in Super Smash Bros. Brawl at E3 2006. He was one of the original 4 members to be confirmed as returning playable character at E3 2006, with the other three being Mario, Kirby, and Pikachu.

Link is currently ranked 35th in Low Tier. Link is equipped with a useful DACUS that helps his mobility, as well as some camping ability, some of the best overall reach in his attacks, great momentum cancelling and the third best potential vertical endurance, and many KO moves. Like his Melee incarnation, he still has plenty of projectiles, all of which can be useful at different times. Despite his projectiles and large number of advanced techniques, however, Link in general has poor mobility due to poor dashing speed, air speed, and jumping ability, poor out of shield options, one of the worst aerial games, and sluggish moves in general (his fastest ground attack, jab, has a startup lag of 7 frames, and fastest aerial, back aerial, is 6 frames). The most crippling flaw of Link, however, is his recovery, that has been heavily nerfed from Melee to being arguably the worst recovery in Brawl, and often prevents him from fulfilling his amazing endurance potential; Spin Attack doesn't give him much horizontal distance (and barely any without prior momentum), his bombs are less effective for recovery, and his hookshot can no longer wall grapple. This has resulted in terrible match-ups against most characters, and terrible tournament results.

Attributes

Link may be a character of poor speed, but he makes up for that with power. His sliding DACUS also helps his slow mobility and his BDACUS is very effective due to his fast sidestep. Link is moderately heavy, having the same weight as Captain Falcon. Link is also one of the heavyweight characters that has good directional influence and momentum canceling, especially vertically, which along his extremely quick fast fall allows him to survive almost as long as Snake, though he arguably has the worst recovery in the game and sometimes his fast fall can also give him problems recovering. His heavyweight backfires, however, by making him extremely vulnerable to chain grabs that force him offstage. Link's tilts are fast and powerful, and his down tilt is particularly good for getting opponents into the air. It can also meteor smash at the tip of the sword or hitting behind Link. His up tilt is fast and good for juggling, and his forward tilt can easily KO at high percentages. Link's forward smash can become a two hit combo at low percentages, it is also a great KO move, depending from where the sword connects. His down smash is an easy KO move at fairly high percentages, and is Link's quickest smash. However, it is predictable making it easy to watch out at higher percentages, and has some ending lag. Link's up smash doesn't KO easily, but it racks up decent damage. Link's aerial attacks are also good, as both his neutral aerial and grab aerial (zair), combined with a short hop and fast falling, is a great option for approach. Link's back aerial is good for spacing when needed. Link's forward aerial is fairly fast, is a good set-up move and its second hit is powerful, but this KOing move is hard to land, since the first hit only set ups the second hit at very low percentages and the first hit lacks KO power. Link's up and down aerials are some of his best KO moves, having high duration and high knockback, but have high ending and landing lag. Even though his aerial attacks are effective, his slow aerial speed, fast falling speed, and small jumps give Link a very weak aerial game. His grab, like all tether grabs, has good range but has 12 frames start-up and is laggy if missed. Specials for Link are also good for keeping distance, racking up damage, and great for survival. On the ground, Link can charge his up special. It is a good edge guarding tool, but is predictable. Spin attack can also deflect projectiles if used in the air. His neutral special is a bow that charges and shoots high-speed projectiles. If activated in the air, just before hitting the ground, an uncharged arrow will shoot instantly, making it a fast attack that will often hit unsuspecting enemies. Link's down special allows him to pull out a bomb and throw it, which can be used for mind games, but his own bombs can be used against him. His side special move, Gale Boomerang has fairly good range and can gimp some opponent's recovery. Smashing the side special will cause the boomerang to reach farther. Link's shield can act as a shield on its own: when Link doesn't move, many projectiles coming from the opposite direction he's facing can't hit him. Crouching can also block most attacks as well, but leaves his upper hitbox open. He also has a great spot dodge.

Link's critical problem is his abysmal recovery, being arguably the worst recovery in the game, on par with Ganondorf's Dark Dive; this makes him easy to KO despite being a heavyweight with great momentum canceling. Although his projectiles, particularly Gale Boomerang help it somewhat, his poor jumping, quick fall speed, slow air speed, and poor distance on the Spin Attack make his recovery arguably the shortest in the game both horizontally and vertically and also very predictable, so it's suggested that all Link mains have good directional influence. Link's spin attack is also a slow recovery move, with predictable trajectory, making it fairly easy to edgeguard, mostly with moves that out prioritizes his projectiles, and due to the poor distance of his recovery he can get KO'd offstage with a fairly low amount of hits and not being able to recover, especially when he loses his 2nd jump, and due his poor vertical distance that also means meteor smashes are devastating for his recovery. Link's most effective mode of recovery is to first throw the Gale Boomerang to disrupt the opponent, then use his up special right after doing his second jump to give more momentum so he can gain more height, but even this is a poor recovery option. Using Spin Attack immediately after being hit while recovering makes it give no horizontal distance at all. His Clawshot is also useful, being the second longest tether grab in the game, but, like all tether recoveries, it is easily edgehogged. Another method of recovery is where Link pulls out a bomb, uses his Spin Attack, and his bomb blows up on him for little damage but gives Link another Spin Attack. At higher percentages the knockback from the bomb can be used for additional height. Although, Link has a large ledge sweetspot, but due to his poor recovery, Link heavily relies on edge grabbing, leaving him vulnerable to edgehogging (though, this can be prevented with his projectiles). If Link is lucky, the Gale Boomerang can carry the opponent out far enough so they can't recover, but this happens rarely, making it very unreliable.

Changes from Melee to Brawl

Link has received some significant power buffs and is overall a much more powerful character in Brawl. However, he has received some significant nerfs in other more important areas, that have made him an even slower and less mobile character, and most significantly, has drastically nerfed his recovery almost back to Smash 64 levels. This overall makes him a worse character in Brawl than he was in Melee.

Aesthetics

• Link's design is now based off of Twilight Princess, rather than being based of his Ocarina of Time design he had in Melee and SSB. Also, he has recieved a massive boost in graphics quality. This most notably seen on his tunic and hat, which have much more detail and textures.
• His forward helpless state is now the animation of when he finishes his double jump (from both Melee and Brawl), but his back and neutral helpless states are the same.

Attributes

• Link dashes slightly faster (1.3 → 1.328).
• Link's air speed is drastically slower (1 → 0.8084), going from 6th best out of 26 characters to 6th worst out of 39 characters. This significantly reduced Link's already poor mobility, as well as significantly hindered Link's recovery and made approaching more difficult.
• As with the returning veterans, Link's falling speed was decreased (2.13 → 1.6). Compared to the returning veterans, however, Link falls faster. In comparison to the rest of the cast, this makes Link more vulnerable to combos and chain throws, and makes his recovery worse, while with his terrible mobility and laggy attacks, he gets no real benefit from it outside the vertical endurance boost.
• Link's traction is significantly lower (0.1 → 0.064), especially when comparing with the returning veterans, now going from the best in Melee to the 10th highest. This makes it harder for him to punish out of shield.
• New tether recovery that replaced wall grappling is less effective, as Link can now only grab unoccupied ledges with his clawshot, instead of being able to latch onto anywhere on the stage's wall. Additionally, The change of airdodging has affected Link, as he can no longer use an airdodge to get closer before he uses his clawshot.

Ground attacks

• Link's neutral attack is now always three hits instead of being multi-hit, making it less effective at racking up damage.
• All tilts deal stronger knockback, with his forward and up tilts now being reliable finishers under 150%.
• Down tilt's meteor smash hitbox was given significantly smaller and worse hitbox placement (now being a small hitbox on Link's body), now making it nearly impossible to land due to its impractical placement.
• All smash attacks deal stronger knockback, especially the first hit of his forward smash, which can now reliably KO under 150%.
• Second slash of forward smash is now affected by smash charging.
• Up smash inflicts 2% more damage when all hits connect (15% → 17%).
• Link was given a beneficial DACUS, whose inputs can also be used for super glide tossing his Bombs or other items.

Aerial attacks

• Link is arguably the character second most adversely affected by the loss of L-cancelling after Ganondorf, as his high landing lag aerials were especially reliant on it, with his up aerial completely losing its comboing abilities while his down aerial is now dangerously unsafe if he misses it.
• Neutral aerial's initial hitbox is slightly weaker and deals 1% less damage (11% → 10%).
• First hit of forward aerial was significantly weakened, with it dealing 4% less damage (13% → 9%) and no longer reliably KOing. However, even with the power nerf, it's still too strong and hits opponents away from the second hit outside low damages. Despite the second hit of forward aerial is more powerful, and deals 5% more damage (8% → 13%), the attack is worse overall as timing to land only the second hit is now mandated to KO with the move.
• Up aerial's initial hitbox is slightly weaker and deals 1% less damage (16% → 15%), but its later hitbox is slightly stronger and deals 1% more damage (12% → 13%).
• Down aerial is more powerful.
• If Link fast falls while using his down aerial, he will not bounce after hitting with it, plummeting straight through to the ground.
• Zair is significantly more useful for non-recovery purposes; the move now has nearly no landing lag, and its altered knockback makes it useful for setting up additional blows, giving the move significant utility and making it an effective spacer.

Throws/other attacks

• Throws are slightly better, with up and back throw dealing 2% more damage, and down throw dealing 1% more damage (6% → 7%).
• Up throw deals much stronger knockback, now being capable of KOing when the opponent approaches 200%.

<nowiki>Insert non-formatted text

• Grab range is shorter
• ===Special moves===
• ==Moveset==
• ===Matchups===
• ===Notable players===
• ===Tier placement and history===
• ===Playable appearances===
• ===Exclusive stickers===
• These stickers can only be used by Link, or a select few including him:
• *Lon Lon Milk: Launch Power +18
• *Piece of Heart: Heart Container Effect +50
• ===Solo Events===
• ===Co-op Events===
• ==Trophies==
• ===Trophy descriptions===
• '''Link'''
• '''Triforce Slash (Link)'''
• 

  Classic Mode trophy

• 

  Triforce Slash trophy

Alternate costumes

Link's alternate costumes in Brawl

Trivia

• Link, Pit, Ice Climbers, and Toon Link are the only characters in Super Smash Bros. Brawl who are left-handed.
• Link uses battering items such as the Beam Sword and Lip's Stick with his right hand in order to wield his sword with his left. This prevents him from using his shield when holding items.

External links

• Link's page at Smash Bros. Dojo!!.
• Link Character Guide on SmashBoards
• Link's hitbox size of each of his moves
• Link's Moves - History Behind Super Smash Bros. Brawl, by CrappyCaptureDevice (part 1) (part 2)