**********The Core Problems with Link in Melee**********

Being very much into fighting games, game design, balance, and Link, I decided to break down the character’s weaknesses. Link is one of those characters that suffer from fundamental design flaws, as well as a multitude of minor issues that could be solved with some tweaking. This is not new, it exists in all manner of fighting games and even other genres. An example from Street Fighter is Hugo, a character so big and slow just about everyone can take advantage of him.

Let me clear something up before I list the issues: Link is NOT a bad character in Melee. He’s way better than people give him credit for. He DOES have 2 nearly unwinnable matchups (and by this I mean inconsistently winnable, but still possible). He also has several winnable but very uphill matchups that require great adaptability, matchup knowledge, and execution. But I’m not about to get into what Link can do well, here’s where he falls short, followed by ways he can be fixed.

Note: Many of these issues are relative to the best characters in the game. Outside of Link’s problem matchups, lots of these problems stop applying as most characters in the game aren’t nearly that dominant.

========== Defense ==========

This is what I consider the crux of his problem. Link excels at defense more than offense, but what happens when your defense isn’t good enough? Here’s why:

• Spin Attack: The startup is 8 frames. Compare that to other reversals that startup in 3, 4, and 5 frames, sometimes having invincibility AND movement which helps other characters attack/escape at the same time. Spin Attack, while fast, is still relatively slower than other reversals, has zero invincibility, and leaves him completely stationary. This means it’s easy to stuff, easy to bait, and easy to punish especially on block. Furthermore, it’s unsafe on hit at low %!!! And to top it all off if you hit with it once, it stales enough to stop bomb recovery from working until you unstale it by hitting the opponent with 9 other different attacks.

• Jump Squat: Out-of-shield options depend greatly on how fast your character can become airborne. When jumping Link stays grounded for a whopping 6 frames, becoming airborne on the 7th frame. Though he does have a 4 frame nair that has decent knockback, he’ll often not be able to get it out fast enough before being stuffed. Even when you do get it out, nair doesn’t do much block stun and only has OK horizontal range, making it disadvantageous. The jump frames also mean Link can’t wavedash to escape really tight pressure, such as against Falco, whereas Marth would be able to wavedash OoS to escape the dair. Wavedash in general is slower and less effective with him partially because of the jump squat frames. His best OoS option is a bomb drop, but that requires already holding a bomb which, by extension, means sacrificing other options.

• Anti-airs: Wait what? Doesn’t Link have a great up tilt and uair? Can’t he jab lots of characters out of their approaches? Well, yes and no. The thing about these moves is that they only cover specific angles of approaches and have serious weaknesses. Up tilt’s frontal range is very small and as such makes it a terrible anti-air while Link is facing the opponent. Facing away from the opponent makes up tilt better, but it greatly limits Link’s ability to intercept other approaches without huge risks. Uair does not cover frontal angles, such as Peach float fair or Fox full jump nair. Nair can be dash dance punished and doesn’t have great priority, so it often loses to things like Falcon’s knee, Peach’s fair, Marth’s fair, Sheik’s fair, etc., and at best it trades (who wants to trade with a knee or Sheik fair?). Dash attack is a fantastic anti-air but it is high risk, high reward, easily punishable and doesn’t knock down at low %. Ftilt beats damn near anything in the game and is one of Link’s better moves for intercepting approaches, but its slow startup makes it vulnerable to dash dance and full jump punishes. Jabs are great but lose to full jump approaches from fast fallers, except Falcon can actually SH knee right over the jab (take a look, the visual doesn’t accurately follow the hit boxes: http://i.imgur.com/FJYaK.gif)! Bombs can work well, you can even drop them to stop some full jump approaches, but holding a bomb means sacrificing other options, and boomerang can’t anti-air since its angles are limited and it often gets nullified by lots of attacks. Fair is possibly the most reliable anti-air, but it has a 14 frame startup which means it can be stuffed preemptively. Basically Link can anti-air well but still has noticeable weaknesses, especially against the faster characters.

• Ground: All of the anti-air stuff ties into the ground defense as well. Fast characters can bait jabs, ftilts, nairs, fairs, and dash dance punish or at least start pressure strings without much fear of bad trades. Jabs don’t give Link advantage and aren’t very threatening since his grab is risky and his ability to chase rolls is very limited. Bombs are excellent at stopping ground approaches and, again, dropping them is his best OoS option, but require sacrificing options for the sake of having one ready. Boomerang is easily blocked/avoided, and on hit grants Link no significant advantage except from very close range. Its startup means that blocking a boomerang enables characters to travel behind it and threaten Link before he can get another one out. Fair is again one of the best moves here because of its range (horizontally as good as Marth’s fair), power, and recovery when L-canceled, but because it has to be done preemptively it makes for a slow way to intercept fast rushdown. Link’s roll is slow and doesn’t enable him to attack quickly to prevent people from chasing him. Successful defenses often leave opponents near Link, with little fear of being opened up and trades usually in their favor. Even fairs that successfully intercept don’t start knocking most characters down until almost 40%, and this gets worse with staling.

========== Offense ==========

Link has a hard time instilling fear into defenders. His defensive limitations mean opponents can pressure him, and even more limited offense means they can do so while taking risks and trades all day without much to feel threatened by. So even turning the offense back at them doesn’t net much reward unless you make big commitments.

• Grab: This is the root of the problem. In fighting games it’s important to have ways of opening the opponent’s defenses. In SF, this means having the threat of overheads, crossups, and of course throws. In Melee this means having a good grab, pressure to eat at shield health, anti-roll options, and to a lesser extent shield stab capabilities. Link has decent pressure and possibly one of the best shield stab options in the game, but that alone is not enough since his grab is one of the worst. It has 11 frame startup and lasts for a ridiculous 85 frames! Compare this to the typical 7 frame startup and 30 total frames of common grabs. Furthermore, only the point blank hit box can grab characters out of the air, the rest of it can be jumped, making things like low Peach float a problem. The extra range doesn’t compensate for the fact that he can’t throw it into his usual pressure, since rolling away prevents him from easily chasing as well as completely avoiding the grab while still allowing enough time to punish it.

• Run: Why can’t Link chase people well? Because he has the 2nd slowest run speed in the game, faster only than Jigglypuff’s run speed (not something to be proud of). This makes it really hard for him to chase characters and punish or apply pressure, something that is absolutely critical at the highest levels of Melee. He can tech chase reasonably well because of his grab range, dash attack, and dsmash, but that requires knocking down and, as aforementioned, Link doesn’t start getting reliable knock downs until almost 40%. The run speed also poses another big problem: reaction. Say you pressure a Fox’s shield with fair, then jab. You predict a roll, so you run forward to chase it, but he doesn’t roll. By the time you get behind him, the opponent had enough time to react to Link’s slow speed and shine or bair OoS before Link has a chance to continue any kind of solid pressure. This is not much of a factor with better characters because there is significantly less time to react to their movement.

• Aerials: Link has some good aerials, but they don’t make for a super strong offense, only a good one. Dash jumps carry the momentum into the jump, but Link’s super slow run means he can’t do effective forward-moving approaches with that momentum. He’ll either land in front of the opponent with disadvantage and get shield grabbed, you delay the jump (so as to land behind them) by running so close to them that you risk getting intercepted with attacks, or you manage to land behind after an aerial but still get hit or pressured OoS due to the frame disadvantage. This is exacerbated by doing early aerials, which can potentially stop interceptions but are highly unsafe on block. Things get better when the opponents are on platforms, but you can’t rely on that at high levels as a smart opponent will not spend a whole match standing on platforms to give you better advantage. His only anti-CC aerial, dair, has a 13 frame startup and is highly punishable on block except when retreating and done late. Even when safe, he’s still at disadvantage due to its long recovery.

• Ground: His ground normals can be effective, but they are hardly dominant. Again, jab is good but some characters can jump it, and it isn’t very threatening without a good grab. Ftilt does good block stun and beats almost anything, but the startup makes it easily rolled out of and the recovery prevents him from chasing if the opponent rolled expecting a grab. Dash attack will tag OoS options and rolls but is a hard commitment. Dtilt is excellent at shield stabs and starting combos, but has slow startup and can be rolled/jumped over. Fsmash has excellent range (comparable to Marth’s fsmash horizontally), but has slow startup, recovery, and doesn’t give too much reward on hit except at high %.

========== Movement ==========

Melee is a very movement-based game. Due to its speed and various situations that require chasing, evading, and baiting the opponent, it’s critical to be able to move around the stage well. The top characters all excel at movement, while some of the worst characters (Kirby, Bowser, Zelda) have awful movement. This can also be seen in other games like Marvel VS Capcom 2, where the best characters have 8-way air dashes, flights, and triple jumps. Movement means not getting hit, and being able to reach your opponent reliably enough to punish.

• Jump: Link’s jump is slow. It takes 7 frames until he’s airborne, and his actual jump heights are decent at best. His midair jump gains very little height, making it tough to chase opponents that are high up, as well as hard to dodge moves from below. He also has no means of stalling or extra movement in the air other than a very minor air dodge + bomb throw, which makes things worse more often than not, and air dodge + hookshot which grants him some control but is very punishable.

• Roll: Like I said before, his roll is slow and can often be chased by faster characters, leaving him with very few options other than block or roll again.

• Run: Being 2nd slowest means he can’t move about the stage as fast, which makes evasion and chasing that much harder and that much easier for opponents to react to.

• Wavedash: The speed of a character’s wavedash is based on their jump squat frames, which I already mentioned was 6 for Link. The distance is based on their traction. Link has very high traction, which means he gets less bang for his buck than characters like Fox or Marth that slide more. It’s still incredibly useful because movement is movement, but it does bite him at times when trying to evade certain attacks and getting hit anyway because he couldn’t get far enough.

**********How to Fix These Problems**********

So I mentioned that Link isn’t a bad character, and in fact has plenty of great attributes, but then I said all this horrible stuff about him. To reiterate the note near the top, these issues can’t be greatly taken advantage of by most of the cast, and even against top tiers he has (decent) ways to compensate.

That being said, here are some changes that would clean up his weaknesses, allowing him to consistently beat any character without becoming ridiculously OP.

• Give Link an alternate 7-frame common grab with the usual 30 total frames.

• Keep the hookshot grab as a riskier alternate. Its range can compensate for the risk without making it his only option. Alternatively, you could make it blockable so it’s only a grab-type move on hit, but have it retract quickly upon touching a shield.

• Make dash grab useful by increasing either its range or reducing recovery.

• Give Spin Attack invincibility until the 1st hit box and perhaps slightly faster startup (like 6 frames). This is to compensate for the commitment it requires. Link will be able to effectively reversal even really tight shine pressure, but will be severely punished if the move is baited. Furthermore, bomb recovery should always work for the aerial version. The aerial spin should have no landing recovery if the full animation plays (like Sheik’s up B).

• Reduce jump squat frames from 6 to 5 and decrease traction a little bit. This will make OoS options and wavedash more effective.

• Increase run speed. He should still be on the lower end of the spectrum, but still faster than his current speed so that he can chase rolls and dash dance more effectively.

• Improve Link’s overall knock down potential. Moves like fair, nair, dash attack, ftilt, fsmash, and dsmash should knock down much earlier.

• Increase vertical range of Link’s jab so it matches the sword animation. This will allow him to anti-air more types of approaches with a well-timed jab. Its low damage and knockback means it will swat people out of the air without leading into anything guaranteed. Also risks trading or losing to higher priority moves from above.

• Reduce recovery of ftilt and improve hit boxes to match the sword animation. The startup delay is very useful so that should stay in (delays are important in fighting games), but it would be much better if you couldn’t dash dance punish it easily. The hit boxes would also make it more effective at stuffing moves like Falcon’s fair and nair.

• Increase power of fsmash and reduce its recovery. The 1st hit should be safe against most things but leave him at disadvantage, while the 2nd hit can remain highly unsafe. The power will provide some much-needed reward to incentivize using it.

• Reduce recovery of up tilt and increase frontal range a bit. This will enable him to have a medium risk anti-air while facing the opponent, as well as have less disadvantage when pressuring with the backside of it.

• Increase up smash startup (perhaps 8 frames instead of 11), attack speed, power of the 3rd hit, and improve horizontal range on both sides. The speed will make it harder (yet still possible) to DI out and avoid the last hit. The power will enable it to kill earlier. The range will make it less vulnerable on the sides and, combined with speed, a viable OoS option. Another great touch would be to make the 2nd hit anti-CC, so that they would need to CC the 1st hit. This would enable a mixup below platforms between uair, up tilt, and up smash.

• Reduce startup of dtilt slightly (around 11 frames instead of 14) and recovery. This will make it a slightly better mixup tool since it’s great at shield stabs and starting combos, but has a delay that enables defenders to jump it or roll. The faster recovery will justify the startup delay, making his offense better.

• Reduce startup of dsmash from 9 to 6. This move often does not lead to guaranteed combos and is highly unsafe. By making it faster and increasing Link’s general knock down potential, this move will start to become a threat during pressure as it, like dtilt, can easily shield stab from the right range. An interesting take would be to have this move always knock down (sort of like Ganon’s forward B in Brawl), leading to wakeup situations on opponents that don’t watch their feet.

• Increase hit stun of far boomerang and improve its ability to beat attacks and other projectiles. Currently the far boomerang does so little stun and damage that it isn’t much of a threat. With more stun it would be scarier to get hit by it, and enable Link to follow up if he was pursuing them quickly enough. Higher priority would also improve its utility as a defensive move.

• Reduce bomb pull recovery so it rivals Peach’s turnip pull. While Peach still has access to all her aerials when holding a turnip, Link has to sacrifice almost all of his usual options.

• Improve arrow hit box so it covers the entire arrow and not just the tip, increase its startup speed, reduce recovery, give it a more horizontal trajectory, increase hit stun, and increase its shield breaking potential by making it do more shield health as you charge it. With better speed, trajectory, recovery, stun, and hit boxes, it would be a much better zoning tool. And with the added shield health damage, it can be thrown into pressure situations to add a fear factor and setup for his dtilt and dsmash shield stabs (without being as good as Marth’s Shield Breaker). This would also make arrows a viable turn around option to intercept people chasing/pressuring Link’s backside.

• Increase initial nair power and block stun, decrease landing recovery, and make IASA frames 1-2 frames sooner. This will allow Link to more effectively use this move both offensively and defensively, while also making it hard to punish, and enable him to do a non-fast fall nair without L-canceling it much easier.

**********Conclusion**********