About Zelda, Link, and Shiek? My friends pwn my mediocre Kirby with their awesome Links. IMO, Link does good damage, has projectiles, has multiple good ways to launch, and has so-so speed. IMO, Zelda has the power to play keep away and Shiek can (and will) get up close and do percentage. I’m guessing I’m wrong about SOMETHING…
I didn’t play Brawl long enough to really give you all the answers, but I’ll just repeat some of the stuff I’ve heard.
Zelda:
Din’s Fire is very predictable. Had we had hitstun in this game, it would’ve been a good combo finisher.
She is light and floaty, a really bad combination of traits.
Has no way of getting into the fight without getting hurt, but she fares better than Ganondorf (anyone does really).
Sheik:
Not as bad as the others, but a lack of any good heavy knockback moves hurts her.
Link:
I think the primary problem, aside from some rather slow attacks (His fastest is I think 6 frames), is that his vertical recovery is absolutely horrid.
More info here:
Link’s biggest problem is his abyssmal recovery. He is extremely easy to gimp by most characters, and in general should never be caught offstage. His onstage game, however, is rather underrated, though his moves are rather sluggish and he tends to get juggled/chaingrabbed easily because of his weight and size.
Zelda is probably the worst character in the game, sad to say. Her options are rather lacking against faster characters such as MK or Marth, her recovery is terrible, and her entire moveset is horribly slow sans DSmash, Dash Attack and NAir. She has one or two things going for her, such as powerful kill moves and decent range on certain moves, but overall she really not good.
Sheik is actually under-rated IMO, though it’s true her lack of kill moves is a major setback. However, her incredibly fast moves, FTilt setups, grab release setups, great camping and sheild pressure game make her arguably viable in tournament play. She does have problems killing on most characters, and her priority is an issue as well, but I think a smart dedicated player could do well with her.
Remember that all of this applies to tournament play. If you are not playing in a tournament, it will not affect you. Zelda, though, is one of the best characters in a 4vs though.
Personally when I was playing Brawl I was doing okay with her in tournament. I think most people just don’t know how to play her and so people are placing her so low. She is a character you have to be patient with and you have to use most of her moves in a match because using certain ones will be bad. Her recovery does suck a lot but it is not the worst but it is on the bottom though.
I always thought she was pretty decent since her moves have alot of knockback for someone who wields sparkles from her hands.
Brawl has evolved to be a game that’s a lot about strong defense and frame advantage instead of spacing and priority, which Link actually has. Considering that Link’s fastest attack comes out in… six frames, I think (the slowest in the game- Zelda and Ganondorf both at least have normal grabs that come out in less then that) and lacks a good grab, OoS game, or zoning against anyone without two broken knees means he can’t pressure anyone and he has trouble when pressure is applied to him. Bombs and arrows are nice, but have terrible startup and nobody’s going to leave Link alone long enough to bring them to bear. (And it’s a pity he got a crappy Gale Boomerang- what’s the lynchpin of Toon Link’s projectile game is almost unusable for regular Link and can make things WORSE if it drags the opponent in at the wrong time.) Throw in the fact that he’s basically a victim the moment he leaves the stage and you have a strong, strong contender for the game’s worst character. His main saving grace is Z-air, which is an amazing attack by pretty much any standard, but having one good move isn’t going to win you a match unless it’s a REALLY GOOD move.
Zelda has… exactly the same problem. She’s got good spacing tools and has priority everywhere, but once people stop stumbling into random F-smashes and U-tilts and start short-hop air-dodging Din’s Fire to keep progressing without slowing down, she’s got no way to keep someone off her and even less options then Link when talking Out of Shield. Her jab is good but it can’t really be followed with anything to keep the pressure on since Zelda’s fastest attacks besides it and her down-tilt are all really damn slow. But at least she has a throwing game that’s worth mentioning (especially on characters she can go throw -> U.Smash -> U.Smash on at low percentages) and she can get kills off a well-spaced f/b-air or F.Smash if she can get her opponent off her long enough to actually throw them out.
Shiek, on the other hand, isn’t bad. She has tilt-locks that can make many of the heavier/faster/bigger characters eat a lot of damage at the start of a stock and can still use needles to rack up some free damage in most matchups. Her biggest issues are her terrible off-the-stage game, especially when playing the victim, and her trouble getting kills in general- she has to keep that U-Smash fresh at all costs if she wants to see a death before 150%+. I don’t see her going up any time soon, but it’s because she’s just a really basic character with a really neat trick in a game where the higher you go, you either need to have a lot of different strong points (Metaknight, Wario, Marth, Pikachu) some really offbeat tricks that mess up everyone else’s game (Snake, Falco, Diddy) or have that one strong point be one hell of a trick (Ice Climbers, Dedede, Pikachu to a degree).