Roy (Super Smash Bros. Melee)

Roy (ロイ, Roi) is from the sixth Fire Emblem game in it's series titled in Japan: "Fire Emblem: Fuuin no Tsurugi". This translates to "The Sword of Seals" or "The Sealed Sword", and was the last game to be exclusive in Japan. He is the son of Eliwood, one of the three stars in "Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken" translating to "The Blazing Sword". In America it was simply titled "Fire Emblem", but caused confusion when discussing the Japanese "Fire Emblem".

In the Fire Emblem series, Roy is considered one of the weaker Lords (the character class for the main characters).

There are 2 ways to unlock Roy:
 * Complete Classic Mode or Adventure mode with Marth
 * Play 900 VS Mode matches

Pros

 * A fast fall gives speed to his short hop aerials (although still cannot put aerials out as fast as marth)
 * Fantastic DED
 * Has a fast and long dash-dance
 * Good combo starter (down tilt)
 * Great grab range
 * Has the game's best counter (it multiplies damage and knockback by 1.5). However this is disputable.
 * Decent edge-guarding with charged B and forward smash

Cons

 * No projectile.
 * Over-reliance on a single killer (forward smash).
 * Very short recovery, although not the worst with good DI.
 * Easily juggled due to his fast falling speed.
 * Horrible stun time, which helps others combo him as well.
 * Terrible damage for his moves.

Gameplay
Roy is a fast character whose combos are based off his aerials' lack of knockback. Although he appears to beginners as a slow, strong character, Roy is today considered an antithesis of this image, able to run and shffl' quickly but unable to kill due to the difficulty of landing forward smash, his primary killer.

Roy's sword, the Sword of Seals, has a sweet spot - the center of the sword. Hitting with any other part, for most moves, will result in less damage and knockback. One needs to mind this sweet spot to land combos correctly.

Comparison to Marth
The comparison of Marth and Roy had a significant impact on the Smash community in 2003 and 2004 during the "tier wars" at GameFAQs, where they were a major flashpoint of the debate over the existence of tiers. The "pro-tiers" who tried to prove the existence of tiers to the "anti-tiers" compared many of Marth and Roy's statistics, from running speed to power, to reach the conclusion that Marth is the better character. They argued that Marth was faster, heavier, stronger, and better at recovering than Roy. The anti-tiers responded by trying to refute the point that Marth was stronger, stating that the size of Roy's sweet spot makes up for Marth's added strength at the tip of his blade.

Eventually, the pro-tiers won out and virtually everybody agreed that tiers exist and that Marth is a superior fighter to Roy. Nowadays, however, it is known that many of these comparisons were either false or insignificant, due to poor analysis; for instance, Marth's extra weight is negligible, and may even be interpreted as a disadvantage, considering Marth (with his extra weight) is susceptible to Fox's shine combos and Roy (being lighter) is not. More importantly, a common assumption, that Marth is faster than Roy, is up to question considering that Roy's shffl' is faster than Marth's due to his falling speed and lower short hop.

Despite lapses in the original analysis, however, players still agree that Marth is the better character, for reasons better supported with modern knowledge than those proposed in the past. The principle reason is precisely the one that anti-tiers tried to refute - that Roy has too much trouble trying to kill his opponents, being effectively weaker, and that Marth, with his superior combos and killers, can kill much more easily.

Home Run Contest
Roy has one of the easiest HRC game for beginners. Very simple.

Beginners Tactic: Don't grab the bat, dash to the Sandbag and Up Smash. While Sandbag's flying charge up Up Smash again and release once he's on top of Roy. Repeat until there are 5 seconds left on the clock then move backwards a little (to be in front of the Sandbag when he comes down) and start charging B. If done correctly, He will finish the Flare Blade, and send the Sandbag really far.

Break the Targets
Use A+up to destroy target 1. Then run off the ledge to the right, use Roy's Blazer (B+up) to destroy the target 2. The momentum should bring you up on the box, jump onto the next box, and use sword slashes to rid yourself of targets 3 and 4.

From the second box, use double jump and Blazer to reach the high platform. Go down onto the slightly lower one, and swing at target 5 when it comes up to greet you. Jump onto the left platform, and the jump again and swing at target 6 to destroy it.

Now comes the tricky part. Run off the ledge using B+left moves to hit targets 7 and 8, or sword slashes as necessary. Jump to gain extra height, and try to land on the ledge at the far left. If you get in trouble, try to hit the flippers, they'll send you somewhere fast, hopefully to one of the platforms. If you don't destroy both targets at the first attempt, try to land on the start platform, and go round again. Should you manage to get to the far left platform, use a sword-slash on destroy target 9, and then A+down to destroy target 10.

Glitch
Using Roy's Counter on a smash attack will send an enemy into the air where they will be redirected (bounce)down creating a 90° angle from their start position. This works better when the enemy has higher damage.

The first hit of Roy's reverse Upb is a set amount of knockback which is great enough to one-hit-kill Jigglypuff at any percent on certain stages.

DED
Roy's Overb is one of his most used moves, with good reason. It is fast, can combo with itself, variable, and has decent knockback on the third hit, and good knockback on the fourth.

Generally the DED is used out of a dash dance, and is therefore increased in usefulness by Roy's DD.

Good ideas with DED include only using the first hit to knock people out of the air; since it is disjointed, Roy can (relatively easily) stop approachers.

Against CCers or SG's, >B >B VB puts most characters out of range of the shield grab, and knocks crouch cancellers over.

Roy can combo FFers into the third strong hit at higher percents (and others at lower %'s) by using >B ΛB >B. This is useful when having trouble landing a forward smash.

>B (>B/ΛB) ΛB will meteor smash the opponent. It can be used in attempt to meteor smash someone off the level, or to set up for a tech chase. Neither work very often.

If the player is committed to using the 4th hit of the DED, which shouldn't be very often, typically ΛB is the way to go. It has as much knockback as the last >B, and WILL shield poke if the opponent's head is sticking above his shield just a little.

VB and >B as the fourth hits are useful against CCers who want to take all the damage and if a little extra range is needed-respectively.

General Gameplay
As with all low tiers, Roy's gameplay emphasizes his strengths and attempts to make his weaknesses as unnoticable as possible. This means a heavy relience on his DED, grab, down tilt and forward smash.

Fox
Roy has a good chain grab on fox/falco, but can be DI'd out of and does not lead to death, as is commonly thought.

FD
Generally considered Roy's counterpick, especially vs fast fallers