Pitfalls of Zelda in Super Smash Bros: Why She's Low Tier 

i know a group of like four people in my school that insist that zelda is top tier because none of them know how to approach

Although I believe that Zelda is criminally underrated, it is sad to see that she's consistently at the bottom of tier lists in every game..

calling her brawl model bad is so criminal

Fun Fact: the only time Zelda was at least High Tier was the very first Melee Tier list, which ranked her at 6-8 with Samus and Luigi

I think her core being designed around Melee Zelda is a huge deal. Why could they not give her new moves that make sense for her? Many of her attacks are these slow stubby melee attacks in the face of all the magic she possesses, and the actual magic she uses is also just too lopsided to effectively use with the rest of her kit. Phantom didn't really ever fix this, it just gave her a win condition.

As a Smash Ultimate Zelda main, I sadly already knew all of this, but I do like the little details you added. At the end of the day, she’s way too reliant on risk and making hard reads, for what amounts to less reward compared to other characters. On the other hand, getting a cheeky teleport kill or playing mind games to squeeze out a win are very satisfying.

I've been a Zelda main since Melee. I don't play competitively, I just like her moveset and character concept.

There's a counterplay to Zelda that no one talks about where if you just wait on the other side of the stage for a ridiculous amount of time away from phantom's max hitbox range, you frustrate the Zelda main into using her terrible approach options instead, and then win because she's not using phantom anymore. So yeah...lol. I actually like playing Zelda, but she always felt like the potential was there, yet nobody did anything with it. I'm glad this video exists now. Hopefully a talented game dev from Nintendo will watch it and know what to do. Absa from Rivals of Aether is a great example of Zelda done right imo.

I used to actually main Zelda back in Sm4sh. For a handful of reasons. 1. She was bad. And I really liked being able to do something with a bad character. Or at least that was my sentiment back then. 2. I love Zelda. 3. My girlfriend also loves Zelda. As time flies, it does suck knowing that Zelda is one of the few characters in Smash that has stayed consistently bad.

i remember randomly reading Zelda’s smash wiki pages and ult’s page said “she is ranked 75th out of 82, her best placement in the series” and I was just like 😐

I am not sure making Pyra and Mythra broken was the answer to "figuring out how to balance the archetype"

Going against a top seed Fox in melee pools is nothing compared an Ultimate Zelda on WiFi matchmaking

I think a very big part of how they tried to balance Zelda in ultimate is often overlooked. We all seem to be forgetting that fs meter was supposed to be tournament legal.

I have always said that Zelda’s moves aren’t bad, but her physics are Also, I would have loved it if they took her in the direction of BOTW. I know Sakurai said that BOTW Zelda is not suited for fighting, but just look at what they did with Hyrule Warriors Age of Calamity. They could’ve made Zelda into a sheikah slate style or even a bow archetype

If/when we get a new smash I NEEEEEED Zelda to get a completely new moveset. I love the idea of her being a mage, but we gotta freshen it up cause she has been so lackluster for so long 😭😊

She’s still based on this old version of her that relies on sheik to do all the fighting and for her to do the KO.

To this day the best designed iteration of Zelda imo is in SSF2 0.9b. There since her aerials were faster and sweetspots were bigger she could combo sourspot into sweetspot of all her aerials and had a very nice playstyle, making her a top 3 character in that version of the game

i think zelda has a bad design for a glass canon she slow dies at low early and mid kill power and they just never fixed that

My suggestions for her as a Zelda Main across all games would be 1) give her back her smash 4 d-tilt with its ability to combo due to its upwards knockback angle 2) bring back drag down nair for better combo routes and confirms 3) speed her grab slightly. 4) give UP Smash a larger horizontal hurtbox. This would maintain her weakness as still being a slower character with higher KO power but grant her a bit more consistency and meaningful punishes. Slightly larger sweetspot or smaller sourspots would be great too but i understand how powerful they are and why they arent easier to hit. They could at least not make the sour spots negative on hit though because being punished tor landing a hit is stupid. Slightly increase the knockback and hitstun on sour spot.

Her saving grace is her Phantom that basically acts as a teammate. Its windbox delays rushdown characters and can put opponents into hitstun if they try to break through it, which buys Zelda much needed time to punish and space. The one thing that dooms her the most is her disadvantage state where she cannot land nor has reliable tools to take back stage control. She's arguably one of the best characters when it comes to maintaining an advantage state, but it's never going to remain consistent in higher level play.

Zelda feels like a heavyweight without the heavyweight. It's just that she has more moves that don't work in her favour compared to other heavyweights which doesn't bode well when she can't survive as long as them either Dedede's Gordo admittedly isn't the best neutral option but if the opponent isn't immediately about to attack they have to play around or respect Gordo at the very least lest Dedede punishes them heavily. Inhale's buffs help to delete Dedede's projectile weakness much better. Not perfectly but it also helps Gordo to not work against you and can even enhance it. Bowser's special kit is all useable in some way. An incredible command grab, a great damage dealer/walling tool in flame breath, a surprise kill/shieldbreaker in bowser bomb and a useful panic button in Up B. Incineroar has a slower but potentially stronger command grab and a counter that can help stuff out reckless combos/strings, projectiles or even the odd recovery. Incineroar's frame data is amazing all around too. Like this character would be top tier with just movement speed buffs alone, that's how hard Incineroar's moveset carries him. Zelda... Is really awkward. She technically has boxing options but they're not as reliable as Bowser or Ridley. Her specials can help her but aren't as versatile or devastating as Bowser or Dedede (Phantom Ledgetrapping and Up-B out of shield are good but Zelda overrelies on Phantom almost to the extent of Electric Wind God Fist on Kazuya and Up-B is a defensive option which can only extend her mediocre moveset as opposed to enhance it.) And bro, she's nothing compared to Bowser or Kazuya's presence. Their armour takes away options and their mobility quirks (auto-turn around, dash crouch, Bowser's run speed) force you to respect them or die, especially with the rage they get from actually being heavy. Poor Zelda actually can't catch a break

I'd love to see a video on Toon Link the consistent mid tier

I feel like Zelda is a poorly executed version of Chizuru from King of Fighters, especially with Phantom Slash. She shouldn’t be bound by the triforme abilities as it’s clear Din’s Fire holds her back so much.

been a Zelda main since Brawl lol and definitely, the major flaw with her design philosophy is that, she's mostly designed like a glass cannon, she has powerful hitboxes (namely in her aerials and specials) but is lightweight and has trouble landing. but the problem, is that her powerful hits aren't powerful enough to justify their risks, namely Lightning Kick sourspots and such. and meanwhile, her tilts and weaker attacks are just rather weak and not quite fast enough, so it lends to her often not having good enough defense once you get into her space. and while her specials help with her keep-away game, they're rather linear so she actually can be somewhat predictable (despite being the wielder of the Triforce of Wisdom lol). definitely what would help her a lot is just giving her some solid attack options rather than putting a risk-reward on everything, for example a faster and more utile fair would help immensely, and then keeping her bair Lightning Kick (bairs are inherently higher-risk, so give it higher reward) and buffing the range on her magic attacks so she can at least cover more space around her, even if it's on her weak attacks. even so, I still do enjoy playing Zelda but it just sucks to see her so underrated after all these years, and I suspect it's mainly from people who just think "oh Zelda has the same moveset so she must suck again" and then voted her bottom-two or something :/

The only problem that could come from Zelda being a high tier is that people would say I'm a tier wh*re again like when I played Cloud

I do feel as if that desperate attempt to cling onto the moveset she’s had since melee is the thing that sucks. A moveset already quite bizarre for the princess given how physical based it is with just sparkles attached and gimmicky specials that just leave her fully completely vulnerable for not real sufficient reward for how hard they are to get off even now. It’s a shame that the wielder of such cool mystical magic has such an in restrictive and honestly unfocused kit. I feel as if certain modded movesets I’ve seen for her at least had some unique concepts for reworks and buffs to give her that mystical tactician type of vibe from such a slower and floaty character. It really just is so glaring to see how well Peach worked out as a floaty technical character with her unorthodox by surprising affective mechanics like floating and turnips. The fact that I can’t point to really anything besides her phantom which in itself has its limitations of its own specifically with range attacks and pressure against Zelda stopping it from being nearly as a formidable obstacle to stop Zelda from being so easily punished from any initiation or unsafe moves Zelda would attempt to throw out there which for the longest time has been a decent lot of her overall kit. Just imagine if she did have a dins fire that came back to her like the one from project m a damaging orb for poking, pressure and combos or her phantom was able to do a lil more in some form. I know I’m jabbering on but I would’ve loved this more deal with my specials and their map control in a sense so that I can set up stuff or just simply allow myself to get off things I normally couldn’t given my more floaty and slower build. Kinda like how she does now but in a more affective, varied and definitely elegant way given she is a princess. Her specials imo should directly distracts and defend her or even just allow her breathing room to use her tilts/aerials/smash attacks or just simple to approach with how slower she still relatively is by comparison. Instead they leave her vulnerable and she’s forced to use one after the other with no other actions being done whilst she’s using them it’s really just clunky and gimmicky at best and trash at worst. It’s also incredibly disheartening cause they’ve shown not only have they been able to fix the transformation mechanic but they have so many more characters in the game that specialise in camping, trap setting and space control alongside independent activating moves that would give Zelda breathing room and in some ways free rain to get off these slower or less affect moves while her opponent has to deal with blocking and avoiding those specials and like I said even something as simple as having to worry about a phantom or let say a dins fire that comes back to Zelda instantly gives her some threat of potential counter hitting and pressure to try and stop opponents from just running down on her and punishing everything she has plus giving her at least some form of initiative given she can’t just do easily run at you like a decent portion of other characters and she lacks the same aerial moves and overall aerial movement that the likes of Peach and Puff have had in all iterations. I just don’t think she really excels at anything in particular and especially nothing that justifies just how weak and lacking she is in a lot of more fundamental aspects let alone her kit just not really having imo a real sense of identity or clear way of usage to lets say the average/new player, whilst also being of course quick weak and demanding for well skilled players who could get any type of value or interest you could possible grasp from her kit from a character that just has more with less limitations.

Zelda Buffs Idea: A buff they could do to the reflector on neutral special, is make it so said reflector sends projectiles back to their target at increased speed and with a soft tracking enabled. That way, even though her reflector wouldn't get like a super damage increase like Kazuya's, it could be used on certain matchups, like vs Samus, to effectively track them with their own projectiles AND shoot Din's fire at the same time. To add to this, the ending lag of Nayru's Love is also reduced on SPECIFCALLY her specials. This means she can also use Nayru's as an out of shield get off my option too whilst dealing damage with both the hits of the faster Nayru's and then the first hit of Farore's Wind, where Zelda can then choose to cross-up her opponents or move away for more zoning. The ending lag of specifically a grounded version of her Up special is buffed so that she can act out of it faster, but ONLY the grounded variant. This means she can use it to cross up more effectively. The start up of her side b would also be buffed, as well as buffing the speed of Din's Fire and allowing even more control over it. Finally, Phantom Slash gains a physical hitbox that when fully formed can wall out opponents unless they jump over it (and takes a little less time to fully form). Additionally, a player who has hit a fully formed phantom will take an extra 1.25x damage from the move as a punish, and if they're hit from point blank range, instead of a single hit, the move now carries the opponent its full length away from Zelda, with small hits along the way into the final slash that sends them away. This improves all of Zelda's specials and makes her keep-away game even better. As another buff I'd give her, on the other side of the spectrum for how she plays, I would make specifically her dash grab faster, and with longer range, so that when she uses her grounded up special, she can use it to combo into a dash grab if spaced properly. On top of this, her down tilt gets its extended hitbox returned, and is 1 frame faster, lifting opponents above Zelda's head when used to combo into an up tilt which is now 2 frames faster on start up also, which finally can lead into an up air that's still the same as it was before. It also means she can combo it into Nair, which I also think should have buffed frame data to be able to perform drag downs into it and potentially finish with a phantom slash on the final drag down, that won't be fully formed, but will still smack opponents away from her. Her first jump height has been reduced, as has her jump squat even more, to allow for better nair loops Oh, giving her neutral special a 7% armour also means it can stop most jabs from stopping it also, meaning its an even better out of shield option. And having the final hitbox of the move send more diagonal upwards can lead to a nair loop at low percents/sweet spot fair, or a din's fire at higher percents to push enemies away and potentially even kill. Oh, and her sour spots on fair and bair are reduced with her sweet spots taking up more of said hitbox, to make them more consistent tools without buffing their damage output. Her fall speed has been increased also, unless coming out of an up special, and is slowed down to a slight stall if she uses side special whilst falling. Additionally, she gains a revenge hitbox on being hit from performing a Din's Fire, that hits the attacker for 1% and does a small stagger. Stopping her from getting comboed to death out of a Din's fire, even if she's punished for it. My FINAL FINAL idea, would be to give Up Special a new charged option only on the ground. This new charging ability, gives Zelda the ability to essentially stir up wind all around her, and after teleporting, the wind will follow behind her in any given direction she teleports. The wind pushes all oppoents in that direction towards zelda for a grab (reverted back to not being slower anymore) or any sort of punish. However, if she is hit during this move, it cancels it entirely and stuns zelda slightly, giving the other player a solid punish. It can also be aimed down when fully charged to create two smaller but more powerful wind boxes, that keeps Zelda on the spot, but any oppoent in its radius will be flung much further away. Finally the up angled version of this move will follow Zelda and give her a brief platform to land on once for a very brief amount of time, to give her time to start a Din's Fire from a high point and as she's falling, combo it into another Din's fire. The hitbox for the up version is the widest, and players lifted up by it will be flung above Zelda's head directly for a nasty up air punish. This move pushes/pulls foes more effectively the higher their percentage currently is! All of these can be charged in the air, but only used when she has feet planted on the ground. If you use them in the air, she will instead do a normal teleport. All of these buffs I think would keep her core kit the same, but make her a much higher tier than she currently is in Smash Ultimate. She'd be a wifi menance. And her Din's Fire buff would make her able to punish more predictable recoveries more to be able to kill off stage also, without her having to go offstage herself. Leaving the rest of her kit as is, is fine in my opinion. Zelda should have more focus on her specials than her smash attacks for sure!

So much for being a strong princess.

I remember quite liking Zelda in Sm4sh with her down throw up air 50-50 and if you're able to read the opponent's DI you can follow the first hit of Up B into the second hit and potentially get a stock at certain percentages. However, compared to Zelda in Smash Flash 2 that's boring, back in 0.9B she actually was the best character in the game, she fast, side b didn't put you into free fall and could be used as a bit of a horizontal recovery tool due to it, but most importantly her up air, f-air and b-air were all very strong the weak hits of the side aerials could be used in combos and the strong hits of all of them could kill at low perecentages. She obviously got nerfed, but that version of her was my favorite Smash character ever. Also I liked what they did with Sheik in Beta onwards, they changed her side b from the chain to Bouncing Fish while still keeping the transformation down b.

Do How Good Is Yoshi In Melee And How He Was Changed In Project+

I like both zeldas but in melee being able to switch between a ranged and a speedy character

There’s a tier list that compares every smash character in all the games combined. Not a single Zelda in any iteration of Smash made it past D-.

I'm practicing Zelda for my first smash local tournament, I can't believe how much this lore is improving my mental about her. Even though she's weak she's insanely hype to play. You can't get bored with how many options you have and how satisfying it is to pick and create new combos each time you pick her up. But yes this explains why I always "picked "Zelda yet remember playing sheik and the "just wait till I transform" 😂

if they just gave her range on ftilt and fair/bair she'd be at least mid tier. her specials, smash attacks, throws, up neutral and down air are all fantastic attacks, but what makes her entire kit fall apart is her lack of midrange tools. the only slightly viable midrange tools she has are dash attack and nayru's love.

"Fun" Fact: In Smash 4's first official tier list, Zelda was at the bottom of that list. That being said, I am very displeased of how she was (and STILL IS) a low/bottom tier character for two whole decades. I honestly feel like the development team that balances out characters flat out hate Zelda so much, Gannondorf is in the same boat too, but at least he was viable in Melee.

When the video started with "changing seasons" i knew it would be a good one. Great video, new sub!

This isn't Smash related, but it's amazing how many times I hear "Changing Seasons" in a week 😭😭. I fucking love that damn song and all persona OSTs

Something to note is that Zelda in Melee and Brawl were considered much stronger in the earlier years of those games, the former of which because she was attached to Sheik for the most part, and the latter of which because her moveset is heavily buffed in comparison to her Melee self. Of course, both would eventually be dropped to the bottom tiers, (in Melee) once players discovered how weak her moveset and attributes are, and (in Brawl) once players discovered her unaddressed weaknesses and how poorly she translated to Brawl's engine. SSB4 Zelda did not have the luxury of early meta optimism: she was seen as bottom tier from the very start of the game. As a matter of fact, she was nerfed in comparison to her Brawl self, and thus was in an absolute miserable state for a long time in the game, even being ranked as the worst character in the first official tier list (patch 1.1.3). The slew of buffs she got in patch 1.1.5 helped her out quite a bit, thus she is considered to be a notable step-up in comparison to her previous iterations, but she still a bottom tier character regardless.

It feels like they were for some reason afraid of making her too strong so they hold back a lot with her buffs and then threw all this precaution out of the window once they moved to newer characters. And they don't seem to realize how fatal lacking speed can be. Then they give super fast characters great recoveries and super strong moves but still refuse to give Zelda some decent frame data, keep her vulnerable but still won't make her conciderably more powerful than other heavy hitters. I think good buffs for her would be to make all her basic attacks faster and easier to hit with, make her fair and nair faster and increase the knockback of her sourspot so that the opponent gets at least off her. A rigid knockback growth on that move would result in its sweatspot still being worth to hit while also keeping the move from being a high commitment attack, so that you can use it like aerials are meant to be used. This way, the sourspot cannot kill but the move becomes generally safer and easier to use but you still have to use the sweatspot to get an early kill. And don't nerf the sweatspot! Give her nair back its dragging property to enhance her combo game. Also make it range larger. Make her jab less lagy. Make Din's Fire much faster. It is ridiculous how good Snake's side B is or how other characters have massive projectiles but they won't give this move basic speed or some decent knockback. It is almost useless against grounded opponents because of how easy it is to deal with on ground. As it is now, it only works for edge guarding. Give her more ground speed and more air speed.

Agree with everything except her oos in ultimate. Up b frame 6 killing as low as 60 and hits both sides, bair and fair frame 9 oos and kill earlier than any other Ariel in the game (except falcons knee is more powerful than fair), up smash is frame 9 and is as powerful as ikes, nair is frame 9, and nayrus gives frame 7 invincibility when short hopped oos. Aside from mobility too be significantly better she’d just need a super safe ariel and a safe tilt. Im a Zelda main and one thing I’ve noticed is that Zelda is disproportionately harder to play when people get better because she relies on players making mistakes and landing safe/misspaced moves

the zelda in ultimate's HDR mod is perfect. i'm an absolute menace to my friends playing her xD she flows so perfectly. you can actually just play her as a rushdown character if you really want to (though she's still better as a trap character like in PM). i also think that the case for a lot of smash ultimate characters is that it is the players who dictate the tier list. mk leo has even shown in the past (with ult and sm4sh) how far a character can climb just by him using them. i have no doubt that zelda would also shoot up at least a couple of tiers if someone who really had a knack for the game itself picked her up. ultimate has better balance across the cast than any other smash game, which is crazy to think with how many characters it has. there are obviously some really cracked characters like steve and aegis, which is why they are top teir, but everyone in mid and low (not bottom) tier i think has a lot of potential for growth if they're just picked up by the right person.

in ultimate, the phantom setup are great and very hype on high level but she rly need to get her basic attack frame data reviewed, more knockback on soursport, and maybe a buff on din's fire. Speed or atleast a weight more bonded with her slowliness

I'll be honest, I never paid much attention to Zelda in Melee. Brawl was where I dipped my toes in the water when it came to her and Smash 4 a little more. But Ultimate was where I became a bona fide Zelda main (thanks in huge part to her design, really; Link Between Worlds is one of my favorite games). She might not be the BEST character, but she's fun to me!

Nice in-game camera work and editing. Hopefully they improve her a lot more in the next Smash game.

i love watching ur content while eating lunch, great video. on topic of zelda, it always felt like they didn’t really know what to do with her in past games.

I don’t know what to tell ya. I’ve main’d Zelda since Brawl, and I’ve decimated as her! Her A moves were punishing with a huge hit box, and her air kick was a solid KO. The biggest nerf was making Farore’s Wind unpredictable as far as where you teleport.

At this point Zelda feels like one of those characters that needs to be redesigned from the ground up, maybe not entirely but definitely needs to be unshackled from her current moveset, like a lot of old timey characters.

I beat my friend with zelda in smash 4 wii (casual with wii remote) literally once and I've mained her ever since.

I had the most fun with Smash 4 Zelda. Her combo game with jab, up tilt, down tilt, nair and down throw was extremly good and fun to use. You really didn't want to get grabbed by her. While ultimate Zelda is better she's also way more dull. None of her previous combos really work anymore and she resolves around spaming knight which I don't find fun.

Zelda has been my main since Melee and I'm happy she's just playable in Ultimate. Project M Zelda was goated tho, especially the patch where she could use three din's fire mines at once

Being both slow AND lightweight is just a formula for a terrible character no matter how strong your other moves are if you don't have amazing zoning and keepaway tools and I think that's where Zelda's moveset is fundamentally flawed, even in Ultimate. I main her because I think she can be very tactical, but her moves have tons of wasted potential. She would benefit so much if they took a page out of Snake's moveset and let Zelda set up beyond just phantom, which is still too slow and predictable IMO. Viable slow but light characters like Puff and Peach have other unique movement properties that aren't about ground speed. Minmin has incredible keep away tools. All three have done form of disjoint. For Zelda it should be teleportation. If Phantom and Din's fire could be left out and "detonated" at will, if Nayru's Love was even better at pushing opponents away, and if up B was a better escape tool, you'd have an amazing character, basically one that's all about stage control and snowballing if left to her own devices. The closest she got to this was in Project M when she had 3 Din's and I was really sad that devs got cold feet in the end, took it away and didn't completely lean into the archetype. She's much better overall in PM obviously but it's no coincidence that with just one Din's and no phantom, she's still bottom tier. Having that much stage control and keepaway was pretty radical at the time, but now you have Steve and Min Min, so not letting a slower, lighter character have something similar I think is criminal. Combining the movesets of Ultimate and Project M would bring her closer to this.

I appreciate what you were going for with this video, but I find that you do not give Brawl and Sm4sh enough credit. Brawl actually made many of her moves genuinely intimidating and Sm4sh was notable era in which actual work went into making zelda function as a genuine character. She had a notably decent grab-game, her up-special introduced one of my favorite combos to date in the elevator, her up-special snapped to ledge (FINALLY) and so many other technical factors I want to make a video on to this very day. Compare that to Smash ultimate that took many of those tools away and implemented what felt way more like bandaid solutions to many of her problems and I will adamantly argue that the sm4sh incarnation is a better designed character and while I appreciate your perspective on this topic, I feel your research into particularly her sm4sh iteration was excessively weak.

I'm over here mainly using Zelda and narus love can throw back projectiles and can damage nearby enemies I love venture teleport factor because she is zext to impossible to keep of the map

Interesting take--Cant wait for more content!

I’m curious as to where you source your tier list info?

7:47 Why does Ganondorf have such a frustrated s***-eating grin?

NGL, Zelda's Ultimate design is probably my least favorite design of the character in any game ever. I don't know why Sakurai thought going with the A Link to the Past design for Zelda instead of the marketably more reasonable Breath of the Wild design for her was a good idea (apparently, he thought BOTW Zelda was more of a researcher than a fighter, but that's kinda ironic considering that ALTTP Zelda is even more of a pacifist canonically than her). And I honestly can't stand her voice in Ultimate compared to how it was in Melee-Smash 4. She's definitely the best-playing version of the character, but design-wise is just a complete downgrade in every way.

transforming chachters where split in smash 4 because of the 3DS version

My sister always mained Zelda in melee and brawl she loved switching between them but hated when they made them separate... Now she mainly mains sheik since he kills easier. She mainly mains them to counter my Bayonetta now

Nice video. Pretty sure up b started killing in s4. She is definitely better in every game. Melee vs Brawl is debatable. Nair, dtilt, , and jab was better in s4 than in ult. all 3 moves still usable as they were in s4, but harder for various reasons. The drift buff on her up b in Ult is a great change alongside her aerial side b changes. s4 phantom had it's uses.

Melee zelda having a frame 5 aerial that kills spacies at 80-100 for an extremely easy sweat spot is something I don't think people talk enough Also from some reason Zelda feels like REALLY good into yoshi

I was one of the few people who year one of ultimate having mained zelda in 4 was like zelda's still kind of bad. Despite receiving a lot of buff from 4, she also receive a lot of nerfs. I feel her concept just doesn't work. She is a trapper doubling as a glass heavyweight precision brawler. She is tall, short ranged, slow, floaty, light, inconsistent, and laggy. In return, she is stronger than average, has long lasting hit boxes, and has a great ledgetrapping tool. Half of her moves straight up don't work or have completely needless drawbacks. She straight up struggles with many archetypes due to her design. She struggles to get rush down off of her due to her inability to box with her only get off me being effectively a counter with how committal it is. She struggles with hit and run with no way to effectively chase or cover space with large hitboxes. She gets out zoned by zoners having poor projectiles for the purpose of trading projectiles and her anti zoning tool is a major commitment. She struggles with swords due to her lack of range and her inability to close gaps.

He grab is melee is so bad, even if the throws are good. Y'all know that her standing grab is like 5 frames slower than any other typical "use-your-hands" grabs? 7 vs 12 iirc

I like this content you could even say it is honest content

The main issue with Zelda are the stuff around her kit, rather than the kit itself. Sure there are things about the kit that could use work, like Dins, f and d tilt or her non F smash smash attacks. But for me if theycwant to make Zelda slow she needs to be slow in one way. If she's slow on ground she should be more mobile in the air, since being fast on ground wouldn't make sense. phantom needs to stay since Ultimate is the only game where ot is fleged out and the main issue is why she has to use it, not because the move itself is bad. There are some tweaks i would make to some moves, like giving her light bow with stun arrows, since she is portrayed as having connection to the goddess it makes sense she would have moved that corelate them.

I miss when she was two people cause it was a nice niche she filled, now Pythra took that place and it sucks lol

I pocket Zelda, but I'm admittedly terrible at this game. While I can see all of her downfalls, I'll say this though: I _never_ liked how she played until Ultimate. Yes, she's still far from "good" competitively, but what very few upgrades she did get were _felt._ It ultimately didn't amount to much, but...hey, it's something.

My big problem with smash ultimate Zelda is she may have been moved up on the tier list (not by much), but she moved significantly down on the sick list, and it ruined the reputation of the character. Before smash ultimate, if you mained Zelda, people thought "huh that's interesting, cool", but now because of how obnoxious she is, if you main Zelda, people will go "ew, she's so lame". Also IMO the design change was a huge nerf. I don't care if people were tired of it, TP Zelda is such a good design, and I wish it was still an option as opposed to a shitty skin.

I think that Sheik just isnt meant to be a seperate fighter in later entries. In the newer games, she like cant kill. Hence pyra and mythra, some of the best characters in the game. You first play mythra to get the damage, the switch to pyra to finish em off.

At least She's a casual top tier

I main Zelda in Ultimate and she feels most natural to play. I, unintentionally, usually gravitate towards low tiers and Zelda is perfect for how I like to play. Knowing how badly she got shafted makes me more proud to play her and want to stay with her even more, as well as, main her in other games. She deserved better

I ended up maining zelda and my success rate with her compared to everyone else in extremely high. She has my 2nd highest gsp and jigglypuff has first… but I do manage to get pure luck every now and then

Ultimate zelda is currently the best zelda by a small margin. As of February ultimate zelda is in the 9th percentile compared to the 2nd percentile in smash 4, 3rd percentile in brawl, and 8th percentile in melee. Still bizarre that zelda still received a bunch of nerfs from smash 4 because she was doing so well before. F-tilt got slower, thinner, and had its hitbox priority changed to be a true tipper. Down tilt lost its combo potential due to a knockback angle change. N-air lost its auto link hit boxes making it significantly less consistent and no longer able to do drag downs. My favorite confirm in smash 4 was nair up b which doesn't work well in ultimate.

such a well made vid ! i main her in ssbu and love eeeeverything about her hhaha

Zelda was ranked higher when she’s blond lol. But in all seriousness it sucks how she’s mostly in bottom tier or bottom 10

Great video !

Lo triste? Que Smash Ultimate es la tier list más alta que a estado 😢

Playing coop against a Zelda is a nightmare though.

If the aerials weren’t so hard to land she’d be top tier

I honestly didn't know Zelda was bottom tier until *WAY* later after I started maining her. Maybe it's because I've always liked using female characters and I've always loved princesses (I also main Peach btw) but I still main Zelda, she's pretty awesome IMO.

If your opponent is bad at di mix ups Zelda is great

What about project+ Zelda?

this begs the question tho, since we all know ultimate zelda is the best zelda, which zelda is the worst zelda not counting sheik ? (i’m well aware that melee zelda is bottom 3 and not bottom 2, but then again shes competing melee kirby + melee bowser which are barely even functional)

this is like comparing the iphone 14 to the iphone 3. makes no sense. no pyra mythra without melee zelda period

im calling ven

It is impossible for Zelda the way she is to be higher than low tier

Hi, my name is Raykushi and I was, at the time I was active, one of the top Zelda players in the world for Ultimate. Something I appreciated about the video was explaining how the limitations Zelda had in previous games that was designed with Shiek in mind still persisted even after they ended up splitting permanently. I also think your comments about her limitations from Melee to Smash 4 are accurate. That being said, I think the analysis on Zelda's Ultimate variation was a bit lacking in comparison and the conclusion drawn is, in my view, inaccurate. I may be in the minority on this, but Zelda's reputation as still "bad" in Ultimate is due to a few factors. 1) Her moveset is still mostly the same. So because Ultimate Zelda's kit carried over from iterations of Zelda that were bottom tier, people associate that moveset with being bottom tier even when the character has been buffed enough for that to no longer be the case. 2) Zelda's reputation has been severely compromised by WiFi. Since WiFi Zeldas only resort to cheesy strategies and special spam, people falsely believe that that's the only or main way that Zelda can be played. 3) Because WiFi Zelda is degenerate due to connectivity issues, the character attracts many low level players due to the perceived ease of use, which only makes Zelda's results suffer more when the character is used offline. 4) Simply put, the people who play Zelda, for the most part, are really bad at the game. Those who are good, like Ven, don't even really take advantage of the elements that make Ultimate Zelda really good. Ven, while a great player, plays Zelda like it's Smash 4 Zelda in many instances. When it comes to your specific comments made, there were a few things that were incorrect. I'm not actually sure if her Down Tilt is shorter, it never felt like it - but overall the move is much better. In 4, it was too laggy to follow up into anything other than a 50/50 upair at 110%+, and was much laggier. Ultimate's comes out much faster, has way less endless, and combos into Dash Attack or Fair because of the changed knockback angle. Zelda's grab is slow, this is true, but it actually has decent range - more importantly the pivot grab range is bloody massive, and her throws more than make up for that - 2 kill throws and 2 combo throws. More importantly, and I cannot stress this enough, you are wrong about her Out of Shield options. You'd actually be hard pressed to find 5 characters with better OoS options than she does. She has 2 frame 6 OoS kill moves on either side of her, a generous nair which can hit opponents even when they cross up the shield, a frame 6 upB that kills or can just be used to retreat, and of course, though of grab is slow, the fact that her grab is so dangerous makes it an option worth worrying about. Typically if you so much as tickle a competent Zelda's Shield you're going to get counter attacked. With regards to people thinking Zelda is a mid tier - this is actually a sentiment still carried to this day. The page that you're using is a strictly results based tier list, and if you read what I wrote about Zelda players just being kinda bad, you'll understand why she's so low. On that particular chart, if the top 10 players all started using Zelda, you'd see her position increase substantially for instance - that obviously wouldn't make the character magically better. While results based charts are a decent resource, they often don't tell the full story of a characters viability (for instance, without Armada in Melee, Peach would be considered a much worse character if we used only this resource), and even with Zelda's negative reputation competitively, most top players tend to put Zelda's in mid tier, around the 15-20th worst in the game. My perspective on her viability is that she's on the cusp of being a high tier, though many people disagree for the reasons I stated above - even other Zelda mains are much more cynical about her moveset. Here's how I see it - outside of very specific matchups, Zelda's Phantom now gives her almost exclusive control over the pace of the game. In Smash 4 and prior, her frame data was horrendous, and she was slow. She had no means to approach her opponent, which was a shame because her combos even in Smash 4 were excellent. Ultimate Zelda changed this completely - if Zelda is given the leeway to charge her Phantom, her approach immediately becomes extremely dangerous. It forces opponents to either contend with a Phantom-backed approach, give up stage control, or try to approach Zelda proactively (which is what she wants). She went from having a horrible neutral to having one of the best neutrals with that single change. It's not as though Phantom is a laggy option either - for perspective, Phantom takes 72 frames to fully charge, Diddy's Banana pull is 60 frames. Now also imagine if Diddy could throw the banana early at any point during the animation. So we're talking about a character with extremely fast boxing tools (dtilt, jab, uptilt), extended combos, a reflector, a combo breaker, good camping tools, 2 combo throws, 2 kill throws (her backthrow being one of the strongest in the game), the strongest Bair, the strongest upair, almost the strongest fair (darn you falcon), the 2nd strongest ftilt, huge disjoint, amazing edgeguard and ledge trap power, an amazing and damn near un-interceptable recovery, one of the strongest neutrals in the entire game, and one of the most dangerous shields in the cast full stop - and people think this character is bad: Mostly due to a combination of misinformation about the character that persists from her previous smash iterations, a moveset and Wifi connectivity that attracts a low skill player base, propaganda spread that popularizes incorrect stats about the character (for instance, before ZeRo was banned, he made a tier list in which he stated Zelda has no OoS when she plenty, but his popularity at the time superseded any corrections to the contrary so a lot of people just falsely think she has no OoS options. The same thing happened with Bowser Jr, who he claimed had no combo throw when he does.), and a compromised reputation as being a "gimmick wifi character". Sorry for the text wall I get very passionate about this. Zelda as a character is an interesting case study.

Strong characters, Weak characters. Thats just the selfish ways of man. True players won with their favorites

Ngl i didn't know she was a bottom character. I still enjoy playing her and will not change that.

i love zelda, so it felt good being in the top 3 of my entire school when i graduated.

Pyra is not a viable character on her own lol. She's too slow and her recovery is really bad compared to Zelda. I can win online matches with Zelda, but I struggle to even get ONE hit with Pyra.

Feels bad man, but loyal to the end I suppose

The thumbnail is perfect 😂

she just like kirby fr

Still my main lol

Changing seasons 😀

She justs needs to fly lik3 peach/daisy so it would do the job

If you're worrying about the competitive scene of Super Smash Bros, you're worrying too much

I never really like Zelda. She's okay to play as, but against is a whole different story.

She may be annoying in smash but that doesn’t make her good.