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Many might say thatSuper Smash Bros. Ultimatehas “too many swordsmen.” It’s safe to say that if a new Smash game is made, the number of sword characters will definitely be trimmed down. Some will have to go off course, but there are a few that definitely deserve to stay. One of those few is Roy, the young swordsman from Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade.
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Roy is a character that is relentless in his pressure. He’s also regarded as one of the higher-tier characters — it can’t be held against you if you find yourself at high percents against him all of a sudden. However, Roy definitely has some holes in his kit and gameplan. Read on to learn how to exploit his weaknesses.
Roy’s Strengths
A major strength of Roy is his ability to apply pressure. He hasmany moves that are safe for getting in and attacking opponents. A few examples are his Jab and Down-Tilt. The former is often used to poke shields and get aerial follow-ups when it lands. The latter leads to tech chase scenarios at mid-percents. Roy’s overall speed is also a part of his oppressive tools, withgreat ground speed and fast fall speed,making it easy to get in on opponents and hard for them to keep him away.
Another strength of his is his…strength. Paired with Roy’s speedy attacks is alot of potential powerbehind them. This is thanks to the unique way his sword works. While most swordsmen have their most powerful attacks at the tip or distributed throughout their weapon,Roy’s sweetspot is at the hilt. It being so close to him means that he doesn’t have to worry about spacing as much to use his most powerful attacks.
Roy’s Weaknesses
Roy’s strengths are as much of a double-edged sword as his actual sword is. The first reason for this is due to his previously mentioned fall speed — it being so high means that his aerial mobility isn’t the best. This, paired with not having great landing options, means that Roystruggles in a disadvantaged state. This translates intohis recovery being exploitableas well. While his Up-B has super armor at the start of the move, it doesn’t go very high or far. Even with his resources, it’s a struggle for Roy to make it back.
The next is thesourspot on his attacks. His sword is strongest at the hilt of the weapon, but the rest of it is much weaker. This causes Roy to beslightly inconsistent in terms of damage and combossince not striking with the hilt will rack up very little percents and inflict even less hitstun and launch power. This can sometimes be beneficial for certain combos, but they’re very specific.
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Strategy & Counterplay
Roy wants to always keep his foot on the gas, pressuring and cracking you in order to rack up damage. You have tokeep him out as much as possible, sticking to your range options,so he doesn’t close the distance against you. A good way to do this would be to watch out for NAir or FAir, as those are some of the safe aerials that he’ll use for jump-ins.
If he does manage to close the distance on you, he’ll start to poke at your defense to break it. This part requires a little knowledge on your end, both for Roy and for your own character. For Roy, you have tostudy how he applies pressure. What does he do when he closes the distance? Does he Side-B, Down-Tilt, or repeatedly Jab? Once you recognize this, you use your own character knowledge tochoose the best option for escape. This can be dodging, countering, or an offensive out-of-shield option your character may have.
It’s hard for Roy to make it back to the stage, so there aren’t many situations where you’ll have to worry about him going for edgeguards. you may attempt to exploit this to your advantage if you’re the one edgeguarding instead. The best way to achieve this is towatch when he uses his jump. If he still has a jump, chances are he’ll recover somewhere below the ledge. If he doesn’t, he might try to recover higher once you go for a low edgeguard. In either case,be wary of the super armor on the Up-B; he might take advantage of it to intercept your edgeguard attempts.
Roy does well against characters that can’t deal with his safe options. This might be because of their options being too slow for him or lacking aerial mobility.Characters like Little Mac, Dr. Mario, Incineroar, Kirby, or Zelda aren’t good against him. He also does well against characters that are easy to close the distance against and combo.Ganondorf, Donkey Kong, King K. Rool, Bayonetta, and Piranha Plantsuffer against him.
Roy performs worse against characters that are hard to hit, mostly due to their smaller size and ability to escape combos.Greninja, Pichu, Snake, and Mythra are good against himfor this. He also does badly against characters that can edgeguard him easily. Going for a character that does great offstage is a good bet if you’re trying to beat him.Think of characters like Inkling, Joker, Peach, Steve, and Olimar.
