That's an extreme case, but what sort of "varying knockback angles" does any character have that would be so difficult to deal with if they moved fast? Most moves usually have one hit angle and at most have strong or weak hits through different hitboxes or timing, clean or late hits. Some might have two or three hit angles, but they don't vary so much like Ultimate Fox's Dtilt are all around 73 degrees instead of the wacky hit angles it had in Smash 4.
Pretty much what you just said about his D-Tilt in 4. It wouldn't be a good idea to have to worry about inconsistent hit angles, on a character that fast. That's why it's better to have moves that have a linear knockback, to better line up your follow ups. I was trying to point out, Zelda doesn't have similar stuff, so wouldn't benefit from an increase in speed, too much.
confirm or deny, but Zelda is not going to be killing people at like 20% because she'd be able to confirm lightning kicks and Farore's Wind, right? Those moves kill at like 80 to 90% give or take depending on the character's weight and where on the stage she is on.
I meant lower, when I said low. I didn't mean to imply she could KO at 20%.
I'm not seeing what's so easy about Zelda's falling Nair as a hit and kill confirm that others are more difficult to do or whatever. You're hitting with a move to confirm into another. Even if you're playing Ken or Ryu where you have to do the inputs for Shoryuken, it's still the same thing. Fox uses Nair as a neutral tool and getting hit by Nair to Up Smash at kill percents isn't something you can avoid easily. Same deal with Ike where his Nair covers a lot of space around him. There's also item confirms from Daisy, Peach, Toon Link, and young Link. The kid Links throw a bomb at their opponent in the air, if the opponent gets hit, they can get a Fair off of it. If the opponent doesn't, then they can avoid them or go for another option.
Well that's the thing though, all your examples have difficulty doing them, are situational, or the opponent can escape. If you recall, Smash 4 Nair, was a drag down meaning it was impossible to escape. It auto comboed and was a neutral tool, so wasn't very difficult to use. That was fine, because Zelda was a trash character, but mostly because everyone had similar combos. Top tiers had an entire flow chart of confirms, from low to high percent. The entire game was based around them and if you didn't have them, you would be fishing for kills at high percents and were generally considered low tier.
Ultimate I feel, is clearly moving away from all that, with the balloon knockback, and either removing combos or making them difficult, situational or able to be escaped from. That leads to the game being more balanced, since characters with an oppressive neutral and have difficulty KOing, can no longer have easy confirms, from safe setups. That allows their opponent to make up lost ground, while they are fishing for kills.
That was the big problem in 4, was that in addition to having an oppressive neutral, top tiers had kill confirms, from safe neutral tools, that could be spammed until they got a hit. It didn't matter if your character was supposed to have difficulty KOing as their trade off, you had a combo into a kill from a safe poke or neutral tool. That is no longer the case in Ultimate and you don't see many ladder combos or combos into KO moves. Most of the time you have to land the kill move in isolation, unless you are a designated combo character, and even then you have drawbacks like short range.
You won't get things like Cloud being able to combo into Finishing Touch from Up-air at mid percents or a Fair spike from Bair at low percents. He now has to land his KO moves in isolation most of the time. I'm fairly sure this was the intent and why those kill combos aren't going to come back. The whole point is to be creative now, in landing moves and I don't think it would be fair for only Zelda to keep tools, from an entirely different meta.
Things are much more balanced than before, and even the high and top tiers, have more variety in character type and move type. Those with oppressive neutrals and difficulty killing, actually have difficulty killing, and those without an oppressive neutral, but have good advantage or KO options(Zelda) can make back lost ground, when those oppressive neutrals, have to start fishing for KOs.
I think that's why there's an overall disconnect when it comes to people's leniency on Zelda's Ultimate design. They see the surface level buffs, which while improvement feel like first draft buffs (Oh Zelda can't Dins Free Fall? Just fix that, Phantom needs to give you more breathing room, okay do that) it's more of fixing what should've already been fixed ages ago, but she's still at square one.. Don't get me wrong I see more potential in this Zelda and I stand by it's the best one so far, but there needs to be more, but I think the real buffs would come from understanding the playstyle. It's actually weird how just a few design tweaks would solidify her viability (i.e. run speed, AC Two SH Kicks, D-tilt, Nair, faster grab even adjusting cooldown and start period for Dins) I'd do anything to have a foot sword again. lol
It's not just personal buffs, but Ultimate's new mechanics and changes as well. Disadvantage was very favorable in 4 and a lot of the burden was placed on those in advantage. Edgeguarding was notoriously difficult and defensive options were incredibly strong, to the point that it was a struggle to stay in advantage. That is a large part of why those kill combos I mentioned above were so important, because you needed easy and effective options to make any real headway. If you didn't have good combos and kill confirms(Fox, Bayo), good edguarding tools(Pika, Rosa), or just a plain good array of KO moves(Mario, Mewtwo), your opponents were living a very long time.
Ultimate flipped that around and now advantage is easy and disadvantage is difficult. Edgeguarding is easy and recovering is difficult. Now characters that lacked the ability to edgeguard or easily win neutral, can be viable, with the new changes.
Ganondorf got a new set of smashes, and while good on their own, when paired with the changes to disadvantage, they become very potent and oppressive tools. Greater difficulty getting back on stage, means he can trap people with these much easier, than if they were just used in isolation. This sends him from bottom tier, to at minimum high tier. And even if a character doesn't get too drastic a change to their moves, disadvantage being what it is will open up more opportunities than before.
Definitely do so. I feel like it is supposed to be the counter to the aerial changes, making them easily spammable. A good parry game, will shut down spam pretty quick and force them to think a little harder about their play.
Is it DI dependent? Because I've only sweetspotted very large characters. Never lighter ones. Do they have to be very close to you? I truthfully hardly use the move, because it feels like elevator, Dsmash, grab, etc. are just all better and more reliable. But, if there's an easy way to LK, let me know.
Truth be told, I don't really know myself. It's not exactly common that I do that, and training mode is pretty unreliable with these things. I did have a couple replays with examples, but I could only find one. It was on Mario at around 50%. I'm almost certain the other was on an FE character at 40% and hit them low enough, they landed early and accidentally made them cancel any aerials, which let me combo Fair. I wouldn't trust my memory, though. I think I KOed a Pichu at mid percents one time maybe.
As for an easy way to LK, I'm afraid that's going to have to come with practice. The sweet-spot is pretty generous and it can of course be done out of a run. So if you need to, use her dash to get into the correct position. Be aware, if you aren't already, that LK from a standing position will thrust her forward a little, so that needs to be taken into account when properly spacing. Try FH FF LK, that works pretty well and doesn't need as much precision as the standing version. I'd almost swear it's safe on shield doing it that way, if you hit with the sweet-spot. It at least, feels safer than the standing version.
And as for the stuff about the kicks... I mean, that's how they worked in Sm4sh. That's how they've always worked. With the exception of Melee, they've been weaker parts of her kit. You use them because she doesn't have any other options besides like nair. Yeah, they can kill super early, but they're also largely the reason why she can fall behind in most matches. If you take away d-throw -> kick combos at low %s, it's not very uncommon to see Zelda go entire matches landing 3 or fewer kicks, and that's simply not the way good aerials work. I've watched other Zeldas play, and sometimes I'll watch an entire match where they don't get a kick.
It's normal to only get a few per match. I mean that would be like expecting someone land to Ganon's Fsmash several times a match. They are somewhat YOLO KO moves that are extremely powerful, so it wouldn't be good to be able to spam them. And yeah, fair enough on it being weird for an aerial, but that does happen sometimes. I'm still not used to Ganon's Up-Tilt being the YOLO attack and Up-Smash being the relatively quick anti-air. Usually it's the other way around and I sometimes muscle memory Up-Tilt and leave myself open.
They're great OoS and have low startup, yeah. They're still not good aerials. It's her signature move. I really don't think allowing you to auto-cancel them is the worst idea ever when she's already not combo-oriented.
Exactly. I think having a auto-cancel window would bump Zelda up a tier, that and run speed.
I don't think that would be a terrible thing balance wise, but I'm not sure that it will do what you hope it will. The problem isn't really the lag, it's the sour-spot. It's not safe on hit or shield and the actual move itself, lasts quite a while before Zelda touches the ground. It thrusting Zelda into the opponent, further compounds that problem. That means she is vulnerable to attack before the AC window would even happen, so you would still have it being risky. I think it works best as a punish or with a read, so you shouldn't be throwing it out unless you know it's going to hit, and at that point there isn't really any point worrying about its endlag, unless it's done on fast fallers at low percents, which isn't safe on hit, even with the sweet-spot.
People paint the problem of Zelda having the same aeriels with her LKs, but Villager and Isabelle's Bair and Fair are literally the same move, the real problem comes with if they are they same move they need to be good to justify their similarity.
Zelda having the same move for two of her aerials and them being situational or at least very punishing if you mess up with them is restricting for her. Nair is her most versatile aerial, but that's a lot to force onto one aerial.
On the flip side, having them both be the same, means she is able to quickly take advantage of any opportunities, without needing to RAR Bair, and potentially telegraph what she is about to do. Her opponent will have to watch for it from both sides, instead of the one, like with Wolf's Bair.