Why EVERYONE Plays: Roy | Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

hey guys welcome back to another episode of why everyone plays glad to see that so many of you enjoyed the first installment on rob and so i decided let's not waste any more time and get right into making the next episode of the series as one of the premier archetypes within smash there's no shortage of representation for sword fighters given there's almost 20 of them in ultimate's roster with that said today's episode will feature the most popular sword fighter in the game before pyro and mithra came out let's talk about roy the fire loom series is well known in smash bros dating all the way back to melee with the release of martha and roy who at the time were virtual unknowns considering the first fire emblem game wasn't released worldwide until after melee came out even so roy and marth were the first true sword fighters to join smash and from melee to brawl to smash 4 to ultimate more and more would soon follow with many of them originating from fire emblem as well much to the pleasure and displeasure of the community who were divided on the notion that fire emblem had too many seats in the hall of smash regardless of your stance on the subject fire emblem has become a beloved franchise for many after having entered the public consciousness over the past decade and its characters have found great success in the competitive scene for longer than that roy on the other hand was frequently overshadowed by his rival counterpart marth who saw great results in the previous entries fortunately for him the tables have turned with the inclusion of ultimate roy is one of the game's most recognizable fighters ever since released and even as new characters entered the scene for better or worse roy's presence held steady attesting to how viable and effective he is as a character the answers may seem apparent given that there's plenty of video evidence to prove it but i still think it's worth diving into the meat and potatoes the wise representation spans not just the top level but also mid to high level play if there are two things roy is well known for it's that he's a sortie and hits like a truck but that can be used to describe other characters too so why is he any different what could very well be the most prominent reason why roy is so popular in this game is the extent of his offensive pressure enough to be considered one of the best in overall capacity and capability for starters thanks to the environment set forth by the systematic changes from smash 4 to ultimate the bulk of all meaningful interactions take place in the air whether in the form of air to air or air-to-ground engagements while ground to ground combat is predicated on three scenarios for non-projectile users burst options juggling and spacing as stated earlier roy's greatest strength is his kill pressure far more than what is expected from his weight class to the point where he can even be comparable to the power of heavyweights like bowser and ganondorf while maintaining the same properties of a middleweight fighter naturally this means if you were to contend with most of the cast in ground to ground combat the number of burst options within his arsenal make him incredibly efficient at closing out stocks not to mention the various ways he can set up those burst options or simply throw them out if put in a position to do so granted kill options are usually few and far between for the majority of high-end top tiers any semblance of kill pressures that they're exclusively locked to smash attacks which for obvious reasons are not reliable or require the opponent to be at unreasonably high percents to where anything would kill them at that point for example let's look at roy's forward tilt versus corons not saying coins are top tiers just for comparison they share very similar frame data with each other a startup of frame 8 comparable effective range if we were to include the sour spot as well only slightly beaten out by coron and roughly equal safety on shield but roy's f tilt is significantly more threatening the second most powerful forward tilt in the game actually this property applies to virtually everything within roy's moveset all of his aerials with the exception of down air are fast and safe enough to match close quarters fighters while being substantially more dangerous individually this is further emphasized by the fact that he's once again a sword fighter thus granting him all the privileges of a sword fighter the question of whether or not his effective range would even qualify him as a sortie is left up to interpretation in light of the majority of his kid possessing a sweet spot up close and a sour spot from afar but i would argue that's not enough to invalidate any of the benefits even if we were to humor the notion there are instances where landing the sour spot is actually a good thing as it leads into high percent combos and kill confirms that would otherwise be impossible if landing the sweet spot that unless you forget landing hits on your opponent is never a bad thing no matter how minuscule certainly better than getting it yourself any range is better than no range something that a lot of fast characters tend to struggle with if you have long range attacks they're usually slow such as the likes of sephora shulk and ike if you have really fast attacks they're usually stubby displayed by sheik pikachu and mario additionally fast characters have low kill power overall giving them less access to readily available kill options that aren't risky to use roy possesses an amazing combination of speed mobility power and range that the only thing keeping him remotely fair is that he has his hour spot in the early days of ultimate krom was hotly debated as the number one character for essentially being roy with no sour spot of course his recovery or rather lack thereof became too exploitable of a weakness if krom instead had roy's blazer instead of soaring slash then it wouldn't be too big of a stretch to say krom would have been the definitive best character in the game even with the advent of fighter's past 2 but back to the main topic if we go by attack metrics alone roy is the most overtuned sword fighter among the roster he has the same kill power as zaiken sephiroth with the speed of lucina and mithra and the ground and air mobility of cloud that's not to say he has no flaws but in terms of strengths roy is probably the best overall swordfighter in the game i'd go so far as to say he would even eclipse mithra if the latter wasn't able to switch to pyra continuing on with that something that lends credence to roy's overall power is that everything in his moonstep has a purpose if it doesn't outright kill it puts his target into a situation where the next attack most certainly will pragmatically he has no bad moves his jab especially in tandem with the zone aerials is considered to be one of the best jabs of all time adds at least to pretty much every other move in his kit at varying percentages with the most infamous one being jab into reverse back gear a simple two-part combo that can kill as early as 80 near the ledge four till nup tilt are both incredibly fast burst options with smash attack levels of kill power initially downtilt may seem innocuous but it's remarkably safe on shield even when sour spotted and can set attack chases which roy excels at thanks to how fast his movement and attacks are you can see that echoed throughout his aerials too and low percents are able to combo several times for easy percents most notably neutral forward and up air which can string into each other at high percents all five of them are viable kill options neutral air can kill forward air can kill back air up air down here while swordfighters in general have good knockback scaling in all of their moves it's rare to see them kill this early if that wasn't enough his specials expressed his sheer power and speed as well flareblade in my opinion has the least amount of practical use but its two framing potential and low end lag gives it enough situational applications double-edged dance is notorious for its ridiculous ko potential with the final hit of the neutral variant famously overshadowing cloud's limit cross-slashing ko potential despite being a regular move that roy can spam as much as he wants since it's a multi-input attack it's also fantastic for covering spot dodges or even rolls blazer may not have the farthest distance coverage but it makes up for that by being a very strong attack on its own doing well over 20 when grounded a frame 9 startup and super armor from frames 4 through 10 letting him punch through follow-up attacks as an added shield option also like everything else it can kill at high percents so if bush comes to shove you have an out of shield kill option which not many characters can say they have i know counter is regarded by many to be overrated and really only used in casual or low level play due to how punishable it is if your opponent calls you out on it but a counter is still a counter it can still be used to edge guard certain recoveries or as a surprise option every once in a while in royce case specifically it may actually be more effective than many people give it credit for if you factor in how strong the rest of his move stud is skill players may find it too much of a risk to go for a counter callous because if they guess wrong and he throws down an attack instead that could be even more punishing than if they just took whatever he was about to counter so far in my why no one plays series i brought up a lot of characters who share the same attributes as roy fast attacks good combo game and great mobility but they all struggle with the same issue of being unable to close out stocks in one hit i briefly touched on this in my sorties video but since roy has such good knockback scaling for the majority of his kit if he somehow fails to kill you early on and you're sitting at one thirty percent or higher one clean hit from any of his moves besides jab and downhill will close out the stock it's almost unheard of for roy's opponents to survive past one fifty percent because damn near everything kills at that point so unless stock lost lasted situations roy is a huge advantage over most of the cast the ability to consistently ko is a huge determining factor for a character's popularity it's why fighters like ginkling and sheik see very low representation despite having such good properties and move sets it feels really unsatisfying to put in all that work to get them at a high percent and watch as your opponent kills you first while they're hovering at like 180 when they would have died ages ago if you were playing anyone else so alongside their average to above average damage output and exceptional kill power roy's attacks have generous all around frame data very often i see comments from low mid high and top level players voicing complaints about how it feels like roy players win games by recklessly mashing and yeah kinda sort of he's pretty mashy but in all seriousness roy can be aptly described as a rush down brawler with a sword automatically giving him an advantage against brawlers thanks to his disjointed range while at the same time giving him an advantage against his fellow sorties thanks to his superior frame data and great mobility with all of this in mind that brings into another meaningful contributing factor to his popularity contrary to what his playstyle might suggest roy is a very comfortable and intuitive character to use as is the same for most sword fighter characters and why the archetype as a whole controls the line share of the roster's representation to many roy epitomizes everything that makes sword fighters so appealing while maintaining everything that makes the rest of the cast so appealing as well a lot of this could be a result of the cultural landscape of smash ultimate's largest competitive region historically north america has not only summed the game's finest players but its players have often been viewed as more aggressive in playstyle compared to other parts of the world specifically japan whose competitors approach the game more methodically and patiently consequently it's no surprise that roy a character whose entire win condition hinges on overwhelming his opponents to sheer force resonates with a lot of players he and by extension's echo fighter chrome also gets a boost in recognition for the divergence from the tendencies of their peers as explained in my video on them the swordfighter archetype excels at mid-range combat meaning they're most effective when making full use of their disjointed range spacing attacks just far enough to where they still connect on their intended target while keeping themselves away from any attacks that their opponent might try to throw against them with smash 4 and brawl being much slower in overall tempo that was a prevailing sentiment for years but even with an ultimate's accelerated pace the bulk authorities prefer to hold onto that idea mostly out of necessity and that dominant narrative continued throughout the game's lifespan leading up till now with fighters class 1 and 2 releasing several other characters who excel in mid-range combat like hero bilath minmin suffroth the aegis and sora minther is really the only exception to this but given that she has a package deal with her alter ego pyra the aegis still follow a very spacious-centric playstyle in other words roy is the only sword fighter in the game who can play just as aggressively as other popular fighters like captain falcon wolf and mario he embodies the best of both worlds smash ultimate is possibly the first time in history that we get to see an aggressive sword fighter i say that because martha mele plays more technical than outright in your face rush down it only looks fast because melee itself is fast going off of that smash ultimate is by and large a game well known for its appeal as a spectator sport as evident by its rather impressive viewership numbers despite being a very grassroots esport for some context vars 3 as the number implies is my third channel and on my main channel vars i like to primarily focus on league of legends content being an avid follower of both scenes smash ultimate is definitively more enjoyable to watch than league there's so much more action packed into a few minutes of the former whereas the latter often has a lot of downtime in between major fights that can only be appreciated by those who understand the subtle macro elements of leak however in smash you don't need to be a top level player to understand and more importantly enjoy what's going on why this manager roy is that he's objectively a very fun character to watch since he has to engage his opponent head on whether he likes it or not therefore as a viewer it makes him look way more enticing to want to try out yourself compared to for lack of a better example sonic who plays very defensively one of ultimate's rising top players is kola a huge fan favorite for his explosive gameplay and dominating advantage steam it makes you want to pick up the character and play it yourself so then you take that initial spark from seeing war gameplay fandom flames with his easy to understand moves simple win condition and heavily overturn moveset and you get someone who is very intuitive and fun to play mind you roy takes a lot of skill to play at a high level he's not actually his brain that easy as everyone says he is he's a glass cannon rushdown character with sub-optimal survivability due to his low double jump and poor distance cover through blazer but he makes a very good first impression on you it feels satisfying playing someone with that much speed and power and a constant in your face playstyle uncharacteristic of other sorties all in all i like to think of roy in smash ultimate as what cloud was in smash 4. very straightforward character who was a top tier by virtue of how generous they were when buffing his moveset during the transition which is appreciated in light of roy being an underwhelming character in smash 4 and melee so it's nice to see him in a better spot for this game there is one noteworthy problem he's been running into from what i've gathered and that roy struggles against a lot of fighters past 2 characters many of them are very good at punishing melee exclusive fighters like steve kazuya and the aegis which is a fair point not being able to switch gears makes roy an all-or-nothing character and at top levels of play even one mistake can be game ending although to be fair he can do the same exact thing right back anyways that's gonna be it for today hope you guys enjoyed episode 2 of why everyone plays if you did let me know in the comments down below on who you would like me to work on next i was thinking about writing a piece for steve but wolf or palutena or snake also sound pretty good leave a like and subscribe if you want to see more content like this really helps out the channel also remember to follow me on twitter at various farm join my discord server i've been trying to grow the smash bros section in there lately and if you haven't yet why not check out my previous by everyone plays episode on rob after this one but till next time thanks so much for watching and i look forward to seeing you again soon take care [Music] you

Channel: Vars III

Views: 131,159

Keywords: smash, super smash bros, smash ultimate, super smash bros ultimate, vars smash bros, vars smash, smash bros ultimate, ssbu, why everyone plays, ssbu roy, super smash bros ultimate roy, roy ssbu, roy combos, roy gameplay, why everyone plays roy, wnop, why no one plays, roy smash ultimate, smash ultimate roy, kola roy, goblin roy, roy top tier

Id: 8ueeN_rIvSE

Length: 13min 42sec (822 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 12 2022