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Q&A Link's Take Over - Q&A and General Link Discussion

Hunybear

Smash Ace
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Sep 27, 2013
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More on the shield. Has anyone noticed that Link's hylian shield will take most falco's standing lasers while in his standing animation, but some will slip through and hit him. This is because there is a part of Links standing animation where he puts his right Knee in front of the shield -._.- most noticeable between frames 12 - 25
 

Hunybear

Smash Ace
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Messages
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Back throw can get you cheese kills at the edge of the stage. Simple stand with your back towards the edge, land a grab, back throw and then as they try to make a quick recovery, UpB. Works like a charm vs impatient falcos and foxes.
I always liked B-throw revers nair to nair for gimps. It covers the immediate DJ as well as the sweet spot.
 

Hunybear

Smash Ace
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Also can link do anything against characters that stall at the ledge?
Link actually has better options than most because of bombs and long persisting hit boxes. He handles it in the way peach would so I can highly recommend watching armada vs M2k sets to see how armada handles these situations. As for me I just tilt throw bombs at them until they come up. Link gets gimped so bad by characters with good ledge stalls (Fox, Shiek.) Of course because I don't challenge them at the ledge someone probably has a better understanding of this than me.
 
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Joined
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Just got 3rd at a tournament going mostly Link. The two guys who beat me are both fox mains so I went Marth of FD of course.
Link isnt terrible vs aggressive foxes. His comboes can 0 death without too much effort when you get in on them. The ones that pew pews and baits wiffs though, they are painful to play against.
 

Hunybear

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Link isnt terrible vs aggressive foxes. His comboes can 0 death without too much effort when you get in on them. The ones that pew pews and baits wiffs though, they are painful to play against.
I know he's not terrible against aggressive foxes, my link is tho lol. I just kept missing shield drops. If my tech was on point I would have been sitting pretty in winners finals, but it didn't work out like that.
 
Joined
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I know he's not terrible against aggressive foxes, my link is tho lol. I just kept missing shield drops. If my tech was on point I would have been sitting pretty in winners finals, but it didn't work out like that.
I just try to encourage you to not drop link in a dire situation. I failed at my attempt I guess. :)
 

ChivalRuse

Smash Hero
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Yeah Link's hitboxes are way better than Fox's. Things like fast fallen fair -> jab in neutral are pretty hard for Fox to punish, and he generally doesn't want to jump above you when you have stuff like up-tilt, up-smash, uair, to stuff him cleanly.
 

garotis

Smash Cadet
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Oct 22, 2015
Messages
25
I'm actually going to go with Hunybear here and say that Link struggles very hard against Foxes who 1.) Have solid shield pressure / tech in general, and 2.) Know how to crouch cancel effectively.

If a Fox meets criteria 1 and 2, and Link is caught in his shield, there is literally nothing Link can do except roll or pray for the Fox to mess up.

When Fox is dash dancing right outside of Link's grab range, and Link pulls out a bomb, Fox can run in and punish. If Fox is at low percent, and he's quick when acting out of crouch cancel, Link has to either pray for a forward smash to get Fox out of crouch cancel range, or hope that the Fox does not know that Fox can escape bomb-->grab from Link at low percent.

I mean, I've beaten decent Foxes with Link. However, when they're familiar with the matchup, they basically just dash-dance until Link messes up, and then go in really really hard and stay as close to Link as possible.
 
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Rodrick Strickland

Smash Rookie
Joined
Jan 20, 2015
Messages
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I'm actually going to go with Hunybear here and say that Link struggles very hard against Foxes who 1.) Have solid shield pressure / tech in general, and 2.) Know how to crouch cancel effectively.

If a Fox meets criteria 1 and 2, and Link is caught in his shield, there is literally nothing Link can do except roll or pray for the Fox to mess up.

When Fox is dash dancing right outside of Link's grab range, and Link pulls out a bomb, Fox can run in and punish. If Fox is at low percent, and he's quick when acting out of crouch cancel, Link has to either pray for a forward smash to get Fox out of crouch cancel range, or hope that the Fox does not know that Fox can escape bomb-->grab from Link at low percent.

I mean, I've beaten decent Foxes with Link. However, when they're familiar with the matchup, they basically just dash-dance until Link messes up, and then go in really really hard and stay as close to Link as possible.
Isn't that what foxes do against peaches?
 
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garotis

Smash Cadet
Joined
Oct 22, 2015
Messages
25
Peach has much less endlag across her moveset relative to Link, can punish very hard if people try to crouch cancel her, and has faster OoS options, all of which have more knockback as well.
 
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Hunybear

Smash Ace
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Samus is much tankier than Link and has better moves out of CC & shield plus better movement and recovery and blah blah blah. This discussion is irrelevant. We could talk about how other characters have better optioons in the MU OR we could talk about how Link can circumvent his weaknesses. All and all i do believe link can do it ( I Have done it ). I honestly am just not as good with Link as i am with Marth. The guy who knocked my Link out of tournament i can 3-0 with my Marth. I'm just playing with Link to spread the knowledge cuz i believe in the character. Not really to become a great Link player.
 

ChivalRuse

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Oh, Link certainly struggles. Getting waveshined across the stage into d-smash is never fun. You just have to minimize the amount of times that you get opened up by keeping Fox out with your sword. Fair, nair, and bair are all pretty safe in terms of landing frames, coupled with their good hitboxes. Then you have stuff like jab and u-tilt that can catch Fox's SHFFLs out of the air.
 

Hunybear

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Staying out of those punish situations is ideal but very difficult. Playing very punish game heavy foxes made me try to become a SDI master and now I've have great success in a lot of rough situations. Getting out of drill's, wave shines, and Up-Airs is super rewarding and really opens up the MU for Link.
 

ChivalRuse

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In random news, Link is pretty easy to play using keyboard controls on Dolphin. Having that long jump squat makes short hopping and wavedashing easier than with a lot of the other characters.
 

Thor

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Sep 26, 2013
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I know people are saying Fox isn't *that* bad in here or whatever, but I really do think it's Link's worst matchup and I'm kinda looking for a secondary just for Fox [chaingrab me as Sheik, shoot all the Falco lasers, stomp stomp stomp knee whatever... but Fox... >_>].

What is Link supposed to do against Fox drill? Can't CC it and it seems he can often go right over Link's jab, while blocking it leads to shield pressure... I try to SDI it when I can but sometimes my reactions are too slow and that's a waveshine. Do I need to time jab better or what? [I also have trouble jabbing Fox's other aerials for what it is worth, and struggle with this in both Melee and PM]. I also tend to struggle when Fox is approaching with fullhops because utilt and usmash don't seem to last that long and trying to SH uair on reaction is tricky... is that something I need to read with SH uair or just time tilts/smashes better for that too? It feels like Fox can just fall way too fast into range or not do so and we have to guess, but I'm guessing someone wlll tell me that's not the case...
 

Hunybear

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405
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Honestly when I play fox I bait areal approaches. FH drills are just free up airs for me. SH drills I can jab or U-tilt. Which in my opinion Up-tilt is a pretty good and air. Then again I have an unusual my high aptitude when it comes to intercepting and Zoning. At least that's what the top players around me say
 

ChivalRuse

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Yeah, I'm starting to think that jab is one of Link's best defensive options for dealing with Fox's SH aerial and ground pressure like running shine, JC grab.
 

Team Plasma N

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I believe he's choosing Falco for MU's he finds really difficult. He beat Vanitas using Falco. It did break my heart when he lost to 4Serial's Link though. He would have destroyed him if he'd dittoed him.
He told me he dropped Link because he stopped having fun with him. Atm he's having fun with Falco.
 
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Hunybear

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I think Link is fun as hell but i play hm very high risk/ high reward... which is probably why i can only get out of pools and through 1 round of bracket before switching to Marth.
 

ChivalRuse

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Some of his stuff is low risk, medium reward. Like throwing projectiles and d-tilting/u-tilting approaches. Grab is also a lower risk than it seems, if you can consistently get the tight timing for a wavedash back grab or a dash dance grab (or even a tech chase grab).
 
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Links neutral game is nair, fair, bair, rang, bombs, utilt, fsmash, dsmash and jab IMO. I recommend you not to use the other stuff unless you are sure it will connect.
 
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