Zelda (SSBU)/Neutral aerial

==Overview==
===General usage===
Zelda spins twice with magic infused in her hands. Neutral air has fast startup and covers both sides between frames 6 and 23, with five hits flickering every 4 frames and lasting 2 frames each. It is her most reliable all-around aerial, functioning as a good anti-air and air-to-air. Its multiple hits can be used to catch jumps, trap or launch into a Phantom, and edgeguard. The launch direction is highly susceptible to Zelda's drift; this makes it good at launching in her direction of choice, easily sending off stage.
With many active frames and being her only aerial to auto-cancel both in a short hop and a full hop fast fall, she can cover a large amount of space with flexible drift and minimal lag upon returning to the ground. For example, she can pressure platforms in a full hop fast fall back to the ground, which is quite safe; she can even auto-cancel when jumping onto lower platforms like Battlefield's. These movement options can be used for safe shield pressure, with a chance for the opponent to prematurely drop shield between each hit. It can also shield poke, but its ability is limited due to its two large hitboxes.
Zelda spins on a slant, with the front hits being slightly lower and the back hits being higher. This makes the front better at hitting opponents on the ground. Neutral air is fairly fast out of shield at frame 9, and a good option on taller and larger opponents. The looping hits deal 2.5% in the front and 1.5% in the back, making the maximum damage 15% and 11%, respectively. It can be her highest-damage out of shield option at low percents if the user is able to combo from it.
The final hit has additional hitboxes on her head and hip. They function as insurance, particularly for when Zelda rises or falls too fast for the looping hits to fully keep up the opponent with her movement. Notably, they have slightly less knockback growth, with lowest priority. These sourspots are thus rare to land, but if they happen to, they will allow the move to combo for slightly longer.
Neutral air's main downsides are the gaps between each hit, making it inconsistent at catching options and in air-to-airs. It is also generally unsafe on shield, though Zelda can try to space it to land at an awkward distance outside grab range, or mix up her landing with auto-canceling, landing before the last hit and/or crossing up the opponent. It is also completely transcendent, so it will leave Zelda wide open to projectiles. Finally, its complicated and inconsistent multihits make it overall less flexible and consistent compared to many other aerials in the game. Overall, neutral air is an important move to Zelda’s neutral due to being relatively low-risk and having the potential to convert into many other moves. Synergizing with the move’s multihit behavior in various combos, explained below, can noticeably improve Zelda’s damage output and advantage across a wide percentage range.
===Multihit mechanics===
Compared to many aerials with autolink angles, the launch behavior of its multihits is rather convoluted with six different hitboxes. All looping hits use set weight, resulting in uniform knockback across the roster for the first 10 launch frames; however, none use set knockback, which means they all become slightly stronger with rage.
On grounded opponents, the looping hits are two standard spherical hitboxes. They pop up and slightly away from Zelda. Due to this outward angle, the opponent will typically fall out of the rest of the move if they are at the outer edge of the hitboxes and/or Zelda is drifting away. The grounded hits' knockback scales significantly, so at higher percents they will send into tumble and become susceptible to DI and knockback speed-up. This will make connecting the rest of the move harder, requiring a closer distance and drift in to keep the opponent from popping out.
On aerial opponents, the looping hits are four thin hitboxes; they cover a similar area to the grounded hits, but may have more blind spots due to a smaller total area. Each side has two hitboxes, one low and one high, with lower and higher launch angles, respectively, to account for the opponent's position. These hitboxes are similar to Pikachu's forward aerial. However, they are much weaker and send into Zelda instead of outward. All looping hits are vulnerable to SDI, which can allow the opponent to escape the move. Furthermore, with the aerial hits' minimal knockback, usually only inflicting 5-8 frames of hitstun, if Zelda's velocity is too high (namely when fast-falling or during jumps, especially the initial height of full hops), opponents will fall out of the move and even be able to punish Zelda.
===Combo potential===
====Single-hit====
A fast-falled single looping hit on grounded opponents can start a combo at any realistic percent, most notably into an up tilt or dash attack at low percents, and into Lightning Kick across all percents and DIs. Especially at low percents, a single hit requires an almost immediate landing (within 3-4 frames after the hit), maximum spacing, or some in-between combination of the two. Due to the aforementioned knockback scaling, single-hit combos will become easier at higher percents by making the timing and spacing less strict.
Deliberately landing a single hit is difficult. However, performing a full hop forward, back, or neutral first sets up a single landing hit of neutral air; a full hop down air also works, but due to having less overall lag, Zelda should usually fast fall right after starting the neutral air. Additionally, when performing a falling neutral air on shield, opponents may be shield poked, drop shield prematurely, or fail to properly parry all the multihits. Being prepared for a pop-up in any of these cases and reacting successfully will convert into heavy damage or an effective KO.
====Auto-cancel====
Due to the aerial looping hits sending weakly inward, this means that the opponent can only be moved minimally from their initial position, and more significantly, that the looping hits always work against Zelda's momentum if she drifts toward the opponent. Consequently, whether the ultimate hit launches forward or backward is highly dependent on Zelda’s drift. If she drifts into the opponent during most of the move, they will tend to be launched on the other side; to keep them on the same side, she must drift back to some extent. Since Zelda spins on a slant during the move, it is somewhat difficult to tell where left of her and right of her actually are. Her root bone’s vertical axis lies slightly behind her head (roughly through the back shoulder's plate armor at the final hit). Thus, opponents may often actually be in front of her even if they appear to be behind her head.
To be close enough for a follow-up, Zelda needs a high air speed in the same direction as the opponent's final launch. This will generally require her to switch her drift sometime in the middle of the looping hit portion. For example, away from the opponent in the early portion, and toward them in the latest portion generally keeps them from crossing up; vice versa will cause an early cross-up, from which follow-ups are still possible. The exact timing will depend on Zelda's air speed and distance from the opponent before the move; it will also depend on whether the initial hit is on a grounded or aerial opponent, since they launch in different directions with different knockback. Additionally, while typically happening only inadvertently, whiffing a portion of the looping hits on aerial opponents will reduce their inward knockback and thus make it easier to keep them on the same side. The precise drifts are unintuitive, but can be learned.
SDI (specifically inward) from the opponent will make the looping hits even harder to control by effectively strengthening their inward launch. SDI on the last hit (with its high hitlag) also affects the nature of the follow-up possibilities. On top of that, after five consecutive hits, the SDI strength of the opponent will increase even more, overall limiting Zelda's nair follow-ups to short sequences and making it unrealistic to chain into itself in practice.
Auto-canceling early (frames 38-40) instead of using the entire short hop air time (41 frames) can also help with frame advantage or to use the speed of her fast initial dash. Overall, the execution of these combos is quite strict due to the peculiar multi-hits, vulnerability to SDI, Zelda's low air acceleration, and often requiring a slightly early auto-cancel. However, a well-executed auto-canceled neutral air can most reliably combo into up tilt and dash attack. Jab, down tilt, down smash, up special, grab and Lightning Kick may also be possible, with SDI and the opponent’s fall speed heavily influencing the possible follow-ups. A successful conversion not only increases Zelda's damage output, but also pushes the opponent farther from center stage (either into the corner or even off stage), which makes the difference between a quick reset to neutral versus a strong positional advantage.
Auto-cancel combos work better on large fighters, due to being able to perform the multi-hits from farther away, making the directional control much easier. Also, slow air dodges will make the follow-up less strict. This class of fighters fits most super heavyweights like .
When the grounded hits start sending into tumble, the looping hits become more unpredictable, and the final hit will also have started launching too far for combos. At this point, Zelda should primarily focus on the launch direction for stage positioning. It also serves as a rough indicator of the end window of auto-cancel combos and the start window of notably easier single-hit combos.
====Falling====
The aerial looping hits' minimal knockback renders drag-down combos unviable, as they are minus on landing until unrealistic percents. A falling neutral air requires the final hit; it mainly links into dash attack at low percents. There is a significant limit to how high Zelda can fast fall from while keeping the opponent in the move, since the looping hits are so weak; therefore, it mostly sees usage only when jumping onto platforms, or from a delayed SHFF. In general, these combos are limited, as fast-falling will incur landing lag, compared to the benefit of Zelda drifting toward the opponent midair before auto-canceling.
====Midair====
This is the rarest type of combo. Neutral air usually has 28 frames of ending lag in the air from the final hit; this makes a direct follow-up without landing first extremely tight, if even possible. Generally, Lightning Kick is the best follow-up due to being frame 6 while reaching far. While the aforementioned final hit's sourspots extend the possible window, isolating them requires Zelda to drift such that the opponent almost falls out of the move, which is risky to attempt.
==Update history==
 
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==Hitboxes==
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==Timing==
===Attack===
Initial autocancel	1-3
Hits 1-4 	6-7, 10-11, 14-15, 18-19
Hit 5 	22-23
Ending autocancel 	38-
Interruptible 	51
Animation length 	67
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===Landing lag===
Interruptible 	13
Animation length	24
Category:Zelda (SSBU)
Category:Neutral aerials (SSBU)