Buff
•Zelda's ftilt has more range, speed, and consistent knockback scaling for combos beyond low percents.

•Fsmash - deals more total damage uncharged. 13% -> 15%

•Nair has more priority.

•Dair has more priority. (I don't know about this. How much priority does it even have?)


Nerfs
•Ftilt deals less damage. 14%->12%
•Ftilt has a sourspot on Zelda's torso that deals 10% and sends the opponent infront of Zelda.

•Nayru's Love hitboxes don't linger.

Neutral
•Lightning Kicks mirror each other, They now KO around the same percents.
•Fair deals 8% sour, and 18% sweet. KOs at 90%
•Bair deals 8% sour, and 18% sweet. KOs at 80%
•Dair deals 7% sour, and 17% sweet. The sweetspot can KO at very low percents offstage, but around 140% on stage.

•Zelda has new teching & ledge roll sprites.
•Zelda has a new ledge and getup attack.
•Back Throw now emits a burst of magic sparkles. Fitting for being one of the two strongest throws in the game.[/b]

•Zelda has new taunts. c:
-Down Taunt where she waves towards her opponent. Plays the Puzzle Solved sound effect.
-A new Side Taunt where she nonchalantly flips her hair. Plays the Rupee sound effect.[/quote]

To add:
+Buffs
•Initial-dash steps forward about twice the distance.
•Dash-Attack travels 50%+ the distance it currently goes.
•Up smash does 14%.

-Nerfs
•Slightly decrease in Up-Smash knockback.
- Up-Smash hitbox ends slightly sooner to make it easier to punish with an aerial.

Buffs
•Faster Jab - so we have a poking tool in neutral. The current jab isn't that good.

•Nayru's Love has invincibility/intangibility/super armor on startup.- We should be safe when we use Nayru"s Love. It has terrible priorty imo. Attacks shouldn't be beating us out of the diamond. If the opponent wants to punish us they can wait till the endlag. It's annoying being hit out of the diamond. Nayru's Love also has invincibility in every iteration of Smash except SSF2.

I personally support changing Din's Fire. If the devs said every character will use their best traits from their various incarnations then I don't see why Zelda can't have PM Din's. Especially since we play a game where characters can have 5 bombs out on a field and a stunning clone mine. I think PM Din's would be super fun to work with in SSF2.

Nerfs
Also I think you misunderstood me on the Lightning Kicka. I didn't mean they should remove the freeze frames. I just think they should add visual aesthetic effects to the sweetspots as well as the freeze frames. Lightning Kicks look rather bland the way they are now.

Also Zalo we're getting Faore's Wind nerfs no matter what. We might as well not try to fight it.

I also think Dsmash could use a nerf. But nothing drastic LOL just make it 9a Dsmash. So rather than killing at 40% it kills at 70% and is slightly faster. c:

Also TCS I began reading your post but then you said make Dsmash the same power as fsmash and I disregarded everything you said to la;dc. lol xD

Dsmash could get a knockback nerfed, but don't give it less start-up. It would become more of a mashable go-to-move to push off people up close and you don't want to encourage that.

Nayru's Love is already good. When it hit, Zelda and her opponent end up on near even frame advantage. It's a good GTFO move. You have to be wise with it right now or Zelda gets punished. I'm not sure about buffing it much.

I also think Zelda should be vulnerable, at least for a frame, on the reappearance of Faore's before the hitbox comes out. Zelda has pretty weak air speed and no other recovery methods, as well as very linear teleport directions that can be easy for most character to cover; I don't understand why it's travel distance would be nerfed.

You know those things are overpowered. We should nerf abusive tactics not try to put Zelda on there level. Even though we could balance the PM Din's for the SSF2 environment, the current one still has an interesting usefulness.

No way, man. It's so difficult to confirm Dins on good players. It's also very easy to DI and survive the fire-blast even at 90%+. You also can just throw out any aerial and kill the Din's Fire. It's so slow, it's not like you can't see it coming either. Nerfing her Dsmash, yes. But Din's is incredibly average as a move. It has a the good use of obtaining early kills and be a full-screen combo extender, but it has many vulnerable aspects. Buffs might not be fully justifiable, but no nerfs needed however.

You cannot give Naryu's Love invincibility on startup, there has to be a couple of frames without it at the beginning. Otherwise, you can just buffer n-spec during any roll, tech, or getup and if they don't punish perfectly they will get hurt. This is why wakeup shine in Melee for Fox/Falco is so good, frame 1 invincibility (plus in ssf2 we can buffer specials to make them come out on the first frame possible).

I didn't notice that part. That is really dumb for it to be so similar to Vanish's distance. Zelda is much easier to push off-stage than Sheik. Hope that's just a mistake.

Same, it is really dumb.

Edited the changelist based on everyone's inputs!
Buffs
•Jab is faster.

•Zelda's ftilt has more range, speed, and lowered knockback scaling for combos beyond low percents.

•Fsmash deals more total damage uncharged. 13% -> 15%

•Nair has more priority.

•Dair has more priority.

•Initial-dash steps forward about twice the distance.

•Usmash has a slightly bigger hitbox it also does more total damage uncharged 14%.

•Dash Attack travels 50% farther than it currently goes.

•Nayru's Love has transcendent priority.

Nerfs
•Ftilt deals less damage. 14%->12%

•Ftilt has a sourspot on Zelda's torso that deals 10% and sends the opponent infront of Zelda.

•Dtilt no longer meteor smashes.

•Usmash has slighlty less knockback and the hitbox duration is slightly decreased. Making it easier to punish with an aerial.

•Dsmash is now reverted back to its 9a strength.

•Nayru's Love hitboxes no longer linger.

•Faore's Wind has increased landing lag following the global special fall nerf. Though reappearing directly onto the stage or a platform drecreases the landing lag significantly.

•The hitboxes on Faore's Wind are weakened (Ribbon 7%->5%, Reappear 11%->5%). The reappearance hitbox was also tightened.

Neutral
•Lightning Kicks mirror each other, They now KO around the same percents.
•Fair deals 8% sour, and 18% sweet. KOs at 90%
•Bair deals 8% sour, and 18% sweet. KOs at 80%
•Dair deals 7% sour, and 17% sweet. The sweetspot can KO at very low percents offstage, but around 140% on stage.
•Lightning Kicks and Dair have new aesthetic hitbox sprites and visual ques for landing sweetspots. Along with still having freeze frames.

•Zelda has new teching & ledge roll sprites. Where she somersaults like the rest of the cast rather than reusing her roll sprites.
•Zelda has a new ledge and getup attack. Where she sweeps the ground around her with her legs rather than reusing her dtilt sprite.

•Back Throw now emits a burst of magic sparkles. Fitting for being one of the two strongest throws in the game.
•Most of her attacks in general emit more magical sparkles.

•Zelda has new taunts. c:
-Down Taunt where she leans forward a little and waves towards her opponent. Plays the Puzzle Solved sound effect.
-A new Side Taunt where she nonchalantly flips her hair. Plays the Rupee sound effect.

Wishlist
•Din's Fire is akin to PM. Zelda can set a fireball anywhere on and off stage. If the opponent makes contact with it, the Zelda player uses side special again after setting a fireball, or after 5 seconds have passed the fireball will explode. Regardless Zelda has to wait 3 seconds after the previous fireball explodes before she can use Din's Fire again. It also travels slightly faster.

•The player tag disappears when Zelda uses Faore's Wind.

•Zelda's Fair/Bair & Throws use their Melee Sound Effects.

I feel the presence of PM Din's fire is unnecessary. The current Din's Fire is already good enough as is. I'd be fine with some stat changes but completely changing it would be unneeded.

Noted lol, added PM Din's to a new section. The changelist is now complete.

Fun fact:

You can elevator combo in this game.

However, it works at very late percentages, it works on Puff at 145% on FD, and works on DK at 240%

Din's Fire


Where is it now?
Currently as of version 9b Din's Fire is basically a faster, weaker version of it's Brawl counterpart. While this isn't bad by any means many Zelda players are rarely seen casting this special. Many only opt to use it when the opponent is offstage to try to gimp their recovery but this is often fruitless as Din's Fire has average knockback and can be DIed extremely easily. Din's Fire, even with its buff in speed is still very slow. Meaning in any matchups with a character that has even a moderately fast dash or air speed Din's Fire is often useless. It also doesn't fair any better VS campy characters or characters with charge specials such as Samus & DK.

What about the future?
Well it's known news that in Beta there will be a global recovery nerf in form of every up and recovery special gaining landing lag. This means Faore's Wind, Zelda's only recovery option will be heavily nerfed. As of what we seen so far(as of the Apex Build of Beta) Faore's Wind's travel distance was cut in half. Along with receiving a ton of endlag on both ground and aerial landings. Effectively giving Zelda Lloyd Tier recovery.

So what does that have to do with Din's Fire?
Well since Faore's Wind was arguably Zelda's best special move(out of the 3 she currently has barring Transform) this leaves Zelda a low damage defensive tool in Nayru's Love and a mediocre projectile in Din's Fire.

So what do you propose?
I think the best way to go is to change Din's Fire to act similar to but not exactly like Din's Fire from Project M 3.5

How SSF2 Din's Fire would work.
•Zelda will cast a Din's Fire exactly how she currently would.
•Upon releasing the special button rather than immediately exploding the Din's Fireball will stay suspended in the air with an active hitbox.
•Din's Fire will stay active for roughly 3 seconds before it explodes on it's own.
•Zelda can also use side special again while a Din's Fireball is out to prematurely detonate it. Using Transform will also detonate the fireball as well.
•Unlike Project M once the Din's Fireball explodes a fire wisp will not come flying back to Zelda. Instead Zelda has to wait 2 seconds before she can cast Din's Fire again.


Wouldn't this change the character too much?
The beautiful part is that Din's Fire in it's current 9b state is completely optional to use. Changing it to PM Din's wouldn't effect the entirety of Zelda's current playstyle. Instead it gives Zelda access to combos, zoning, and setups she's never had before. Giving her a new tool to keep the character fresh and fun to play. The recovery nerf for a Din's buff is also welcome in my book. As Zelda can use Din's Fire to aid her recovery giving her options to trick and challenge her opponent.

Basically what I want to do in Beta

I seriously doubt the travel distance of her up b was cut in half. If it is, that's a pretty big nerf lol. And as much as I like PM Din's Fire, I still think the Din's Fire we have rn is plenty good. Would be cool if PM Din's Fire made it into SSF2 tho

not quite half but close to it

welp. Dawk's playstyle is 9001% ruined.

Time to join 20XX and main Lloyd.

Then I hope her initial-dash and on-stage tools get better, like in the change-list. The long teleport was her only reliable tool to create breathable space from faster-characters' pressure.

She still has an incredible onstage game with amazing priority, decent range on a lot of normals, decent combos but excellent kill moves that can be comboed into, and tools to beat a lot of approaches. (Assuming that these attributes don't go away in Beta.) Even with a few extra frames of landlag, it's still super hard for some characters to ever touch Zelda if she just spams that over and over. Besides, if you want Zelda to have tools against swordsmen then give her tools that don't involve camping out the opponent, as people are wont to do with FW. Give her approach options in neutral against Lloyd and co., and she'll be fine, but don't make Zelda players rely on an incredibly annoying strategy that is nearly unbeatable if used correctly against certain characters on certain stages.