YaraNooki
Smash Rookie
- Joined
- Mar 22, 2019
- Messages
- 11
If you play Zelda then you know that she has some sauce, but it’s super inconsistent. Zelda needs the 6.0 Jiggs treatment, meaning that the balance team buffs her combo starters so that she can use her entire kit. Starting with...
Down Throw
This move is the most convincing tease in the game. In training mode it appears to true combo out into back air, but it simply doesn’t work that way in practice. Opponents can DI behind Zelda, in front of Zelda, or not DI at all, forcing Zelda to read a 1/3 mixup or miss. Using Nair instead of back air is still a 1/2 chance, as Nair can’t cover both DI towards Zelda and DI away from Zelda at the same time. The move was clearly designed as a combo starter but there’s too much variance in how it works. With a “6.0 Jiggs” buff, down throw should combo into back air CONSISTENTLY at low to mid percents, and be a 50/50 into up air at high percents. This would be consistent with the nerfed checkmate, beep boop, koo-pa and hoo hah used by Robin, Rob, Bowser and Diddy, respectively.
Down Tilt
Down tilt’s angle was intentionally nerfed from smash 4, which makes me doubt that it will ever be adjusted. That said, this is the other major combo starter that Zelda needs. Down tilt +jab, Down tilt + f-tilt, down tilt + nair, and down tilt + f-air need to return as true combos, at least at low percents. The move is useless for most everything except two-framing now, and Zelda desperately needs the utility it once provided.
My rationale is simple: make Zelda play the way she was designed to play. As a character with short ranged, clunky-but-powerful aerials, Zelda generally loses the air game in neutral. Consequently, her ground game should excel at popping enemies into the air where they can punished by her aerial finishers, rewarding Zelda for winning neutral with a limited moveset. As it stands right now, Zelda is a glass cannon character without a consistent way of using her “cannon” (the kick), and so she’s often smothered by her competition despite having Nayru’s “best defensive move on WiFi” Love and solid edge guarding potential.
6.0 proved that the balance team knows how to “connect the dots” and fill in the missing pieces in low tier characters’ kits. Hopefully 7.0 will have something in store for Zelda.
Down Throw
This move is the most convincing tease in the game. In training mode it appears to true combo out into back air, but it simply doesn’t work that way in practice. Opponents can DI behind Zelda, in front of Zelda, or not DI at all, forcing Zelda to read a 1/3 mixup or miss. Using Nair instead of back air is still a 1/2 chance, as Nair can’t cover both DI towards Zelda and DI away from Zelda at the same time. The move was clearly designed as a combo starter but there’s too much variance in how it works. With a “6.0 Jiggs” buff, down throw should combo into back air CONSISTENTLY at low to mid percents, and be a 50/50 into up air at high percents. This would be consistent with the nerfed checkmate, beep boop, koo-pa and hoo hah used by Robin, Rob, Bowser and Diddy, respectively.
Down Tilt
Down tilt’s angle was intentionally nerfed from smash 4, which makes me doubt that it will ever be adjusted. That said, this is the other major combo starter that Zelda needs. Down tilt +jab, Down tilt + f-tilt, down tilt + nair, and down tilt + f-air need to return as true combos, at least at low percents. The move is useless for most everything except two-framing now, and Zelda desperately needs the utility it once provided.
My rationale is simple: make Zelda play the way she was designed to play. As a character with short ranged, clunky-but-powerful aerials, Zelda generally loses the air game in neutral. Consequently, her ground game should excel at popping enemies into the air where they can punished by her aerial finishers, rewarding Zelda for winning neutral with a limited moveset. As it stands right now, Zelda is a glass cannon character without a consistent way of using her “cannon” (the kick), and so she’s often smothered by her competition despite having Nayru’s “best defensive move on WiFi” Love and solid edge guarding potential.
6.0 proved that the balance team knows how to “connect the dots” and fill in the missing pieces in low tier characters’ kits. Hopefully 7.0 will have something in store for Zelda.
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