FE Anna Rework | FFC Edition

edit: wtf why did you guys feature both

For context, this wasn’t the original idea for the blog. However, if any of you Fan Fighter Clash (AwfulBeast’s event where people submit movesets and we have them beat the shit out of each other) , the other version of this blog wouldn’t really be compatible for judging as it skims through several standards and might not paint the fullest of pictures – that’s intentional, but in the case of FFC’s Discord tournaments, something more thorough is needed.

So here’s my rework of an old moveset of mine (Anna from Fire Emblem) in slightly different form. There will be some things that are completely different, there will be some things that are copy-pasted, and there will be some stuff in between. There will also be some things directed at the Discord server, so if there's anyone specifically mentioned, that's why. Hope you enjoy.

but the original is better as an actual blog go read that

FE ANNA, BUT FORMALLY DISCUSSED

Playstyle:

Honestly you guys are getting really good at these, I wouldn’t be surprised if one of you could figure out a more true playstyle for Anna and/or wrap it up more concisely. But here’s what I think of her.

she hot, neurons activate

Dumb jokes aside, Anna ended up being mostly different from the original bag of tricks character I thought she was - instead, she’s a resource manage character who has to juggle not only fending off the opponent with whatever she has, but also her gold, which she can either save up for higher-priced objects, use for smaller things, or occasionally have to spend it on some… mandatory costs later on.

Anna isn’t completely screwed if she doesn’t manage her gold well (she can use her cheap weapons easily, and those mandatory costs aren’t too bad), but Anna becomes a way better character when using her gold well, given she can upgrade her tools and use certain moves she wouldn’t be able to do otherwise.

She also has a unique way to slightly change up her playstyle by investing funds into a specific mechanic, allowing her to change her stats and drastically buff some moves that are otherwise rather lackluster. It’s presented more as a tradeoff, you do lose some things that make characters good like movement speed, but being able to swap between strengths relatively easily and play with them well could be very helpful.

And while the original trickster archetype is mostly overshadowed, fundamentally her kit isn’t that different: she’s got some consistent and basic swordie attacks like you’d expect, but she’s also got status effects, non-Special projectiles for multiple angles and situations, some absolutely ridiculous stronk moves, and one or two meme finishers. This is compensated for by her regular kit being very lackluster in the combo department (apart from one move but we’ll get to that), and Anna will usually have to hit the opponent once and only attempt to maintain advantage, or just reset back to neutral and try again. So yes, other characters will absolutely have better damage outputs than her.

Overall, I think Anna ends up being pretty well-rounded for the most part, if she gets outperformed by a solid combo character that’s that (and she might lose to heavyweights but you guys will have to check that), but she can cope with other well-roundeds really well, deal with zoners decently, and bean characters who struggle to kill kind of hard. Just that if she’s on the losing side of things, while she isn’t useless, she’ll definitely underperform if she can’t get things going.

Stats:

Size/Weight:

I’m certain it’s obvious to you guys what her size would be. Fire Emblem doesn’t really give out character heights that well (especially not on the 3DS), some are definitely taller than others but for the most part, at least for me, everyone’s heights tend to blend together a bit. I don’t really think it’s difficult to imagine Anna being around that same height as the others, Marth and Robin and etc., and proportionate from there. She’s human-sized in Smash, even if I were wrong and she had a specific canonical height I don’t think you’d blame me.

As for weight however, she’d actually be pretty light on the overall scale: I’d put her at around 86, or the same as Duck Hunt and Sonic. Given she’s a character who definitely relies on her speed to deal with encounters, there’s little reason to give her great defense by default.

note that I said default, that’ll be super important later

Speed:

As I mentioned above, Anna tends to be a speedy little bugger in the source games, going first and/or hitting twice extremely often as well as being a large pain in the ass to hit for most opponents. This would not go unnoticed. However, that’s not inherently easy to translate to Smash; make a character too quick and they’re suddenly better at many more things than they probably should be, make them too slow and it’s missing the point…

I feel like for her running speed, a good balance between Marcina and Chroy wouldn’t be bad. Around 2.045 (under Palutena but a bit better than Yoshi) would feel pretty speedy, but not quite give the feeling you’re zooming around at the speed of sound. Couple that with a good but not amazing air speed (~1.18, a bit better than Game & Watch/Mii Swordfighter, but worse than DK’s) and a very solid walk (1.3, a little worse than the rodents but better than Toon Link’s)

Impressive for a character who canonically wears heels at times, huh?

although I guess that’s meaningless because of Zoot Suit’s bullshit

Jumps/Falling Speed/Gravity:

Anna would have solid jumps, definitely above average but not FANTASTIC ones. As stupid as this sounds… Robin has really good fullhop and shorthop heights for our purposes, so around her level would work great. Anna would obviously only have one air jump, but I think it’d be similarly good, about K. Rool/Bowser’s air jump (who have the same air jump height, neat).

As for falling speed, I think this is one more stat where Anna will be a sort of in-betweener for the various FE stats – she wouldn’t fall like a rock but she definitely shouldn’t take her time in the air either. This might just be main bias talking, but conveniently, K. Rool’s falling speeds (both normal and fast) are both satisfyingly weighty – at 1.7 and 2.72 respectively (around the 25th fastest in the game).

But one change I’d like to make is her gravity, which is something I never really talk about. If you didn’t know, gravity does two things: it affects how fast the character’s falling speed kicks in and how quickly they’ll reach max regular falling speed once they start falling (hence why some characters have sharper jumps than others, and why Fox is just a rock, it’s due to different gravity stats)… and it turns out I’ve been wrong before because it’s actually gravity that affects how resistant a character is to vertical knockback instead of falling speed. As such, I’d actually like to change Anna’s a bit and lower her gravity compared to someone like K. Rool – while she’d have the same falling speed as the former, she’d actually feel more like Cloud and Shulk in floatiness.

And I don’t mean that they’re floaty, I just mean I don’t have a different word, and that you can probably tell what I’m getting at.

Also, one more thing. Gravity also affects how high a character can jump, as a character with lower gravity would go higher even if they had the exact same jump stats as someone with a higher gravity. That wouldn’t affect Anna’s aforementioned jump heights, she’d still go the same heights as Robin does, compensating for her different stats.

Design and Alts:

This will be a pretty short section as it doesn’t matter too much, but I think it’s something important to mention. There are a lot of Annas and by extension there are a lot of different Anna designs, so which ones do we use?

I think that the best version to use for the default, if they don’t jokingly just create an entirely new design that is Smash-specific (because “oh now Smash has a unique Anna” or something, that’d be nice), would be to use the Awakening design: it’s the design of the first playable Anna in the series, it’s very distinct and iconic to her despite being a class-specific outfit, and it’s the one that’s been in Smash for 2 games now so I think it’d be fair to say that the team would probably pick it.

I won’t list off my “objective list of guaranteed Anna alts”, but instead I’ll just propose some that I think have a really good chance. Her default Fates, Three Houses, and Warriors interpretations are very obvious candidates, and while it wouldn’t really fit Heroes’ more detached axe-using Anna she’d almost certainly be added too. I can also picture her original design and her “merchant” design from Awakening (without the massive bag, unfortunately) being used, and finally, while it’s only because of the blue hair being super unique in the series, maybe the Hot Springs design could be used too.

As a reminder, every single Anna in the series is a different Anna, so canonically, all of her alts would actually be different people, meaning that just like Bowser Jr. and the Koopalings you could have an 8-fighter FFA between all of them and it wouldn’t be non-canon.

Gimmick #1: Gold

Anna loves gold, I’ve made that clear, and if you’ve played nearly any Fire Emblem game a decent amount, you probably already know this. As such, her main gimmick centers around this.

Gold is a pretty simple mechanic by itself, simply being a number shown over Anna’s UI super similar to Hero’s (but without the meter). For every match, Anna starts off with 2000 gold, but from there doesn’t get any more for free. The mechanic then relies on the damage dealt and taken by her: relative to the percentage taken, she will either gain gold if she hits an opponent or lose gold if she gets hit. This is automatically skewed in her favour: while she gains 100 gold for each % dealt (i.e. a 14% move will give her 1400), she will only lose 60 for each % she takes, meaning that you’d have to be losing really hard to start losing more money than you gain. While dying doesn’t decrease your gold any further than the damage taken from the killing blow, you don’t gain any gold upon respawning, nor are there any bonuses for defeating an opponent.

This mechanic is a very important part of Anna’s gameplan overall, as a lot of her moves rely on her spending funds for various things, which we’ll get into when the time comes. Due to that, I won’t go much further into it here, as you currently only need to know how the mechanic works and that it’s important to .

Gimmick #2: Weapon Durability

This’ll also come into play when I describe the moves and weapons that involve this later, but yeah, Anna has weapon durability.

Certain weapons in Anna’s kit will have a set amount of uses. The durability mechanic itself will vary in how it works, but it is (mostly) consistent for every weapon in her kit. As you already know, Anna wields three main weapons: a sword, a staff, and a bow. They each come with their own mechanics regarding durability.

Swords have a mechanic very similar to Steve’s tools, where they will only take damage if they successfully touch an opponent, whether it be their unprotected flesh or their shield (although you do damage your gear against invincible opponents, nothing happens against intangible/dodging ones). This allows Anna to whiff her sword strikes without worrying about spending durability in the process.

Bows and one half of Anna’s staff moves are similar to Robin’s weapons, as upon use they will automatically burn a point of durability regardless of when or how you used the attack. These moves will require Anna players to be more careful about how they use them.

And finally, while some staff moves follow this rule, certain ones don’t use the mechanic at all, and can be used as much as the player desires. These will be specifically pointed out as we get to them, as well as any other unique exceptions to these rules.

Exactly how damage is represented is something that can go either way, really… if they want to show it being damaged they could either show the weapon starting to glow red on and off, progressively getting more rapid the closer they are to breaking, or they could take the Robin path and give Anna that durability meter above her UI to fulfil the same purpose. And of course they could always not show durability and force both players to know their numbers in advance and keep track of it mentally… but honestly I like the meter more, so I’d rather go with that.

If Anna breaks a sword or bow, her moves will become either pathetically terrible or completely useless respectively – sword moves will still involve their regular animation but will instead only have Anna attack with her hand (which as you can imagine sucks ass), but bow moves still play out their animation with zero hitboxes to speak of, lag still included. If she breaks a staff however, only the move that she used the staff for will be unusable.

As for getting weapons back… she can either die and refresh the durability for all of her default weapons + replace any that were missing, but for the other method, we’ll have to discuss a different move.

Moveset:

Regardless of the format, Anna’s Neutral and Down Specials are both essential enough to her kit and how her moves function that I’m pretty sure it’d be better to cover them first and establish those mechanics before getting to the moves that use said gimmicks. Even though they’re a little flaccid in comparison I’ll keep Up and Side B at the end of the blog so it ends on a slightly better note than her throws, but just letting you know all of this beforehand.

Also, Neutral B is wack and basically two moves in one, and requires enough explanation in one half that I could separate the move description in two, and it might work better. I’ll keep both the gimmick half and the attack in the same place since I feel like reading half of Neutral B at the start and the other half at the end might be dumb, but if you guys think they’re different enough to warrant that separation, I can put them apart pretty easily.

Anyways, Down Special.

Down Special: Open Shop

Upon use, Anna slams down a large backpack filled with weapons next to her and begins to rummage through it idly, and depending on how you inputted the Special, one of two Monado Arts-like menus appear; if you tapped, you will pull up a selection of three swords, and if you held for at least 16 frames (one quarter of a second) you will instead pull out a selection of three bows.

For both types of weapons, the selection will be of three qualities: Bronze, Iron, and Silver, forming a downwards-pointing triangle with the selection being ordered clockwise. Bronze on the top left is the cheapest selection, only being around ~1000G and therefore being very easy to purchase, but being the weakest type of the three (not non-functional, but noticeably worse than moves like Lucina’s). Silver is at the bottom and costs a whopping 6000G (basically 60% dealt, but since you lose gold by being hit, that number can be WAY higher), and is the strongest by far (high damage and killpower comparable to heavies), while the top right is Iron at around 3000G, acting as a middle ground between the two. However, the durability of each weapon decreases as the quality goes up: Bronze takes a long time to break (~40 moves), Iron lasts for a lower but reasonable amount (~25, could be 20 if that’s too much), and Silver weapons break rather quickly (only have 10 uses). Selection and payment is very easy, just point the movement stick in the desired direction and click B or A to select the weapon, if Anna has enough gold she will purchase it, if she doesn’t or is purchasing a weapon she already has a full-durability copy of, nothing will happen and an error sound will play.

Upon purchasing, that new weapon will instantly replace her old one, and in the case of buying a weapon she already has, it will instead completely refresh its durability.

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Pretty self-explanatory, honestly – it’s the move you pull out when you need (or just plain want) a new weapon, it’s useless offensively, and if you’re a big enough schmuck to use it while close to an opponent you’re probably asking to get F-Smashed or worse.

There’s a little bit of a choose-your-own-playstyle aspect to this given the varying strength and durability of the weapons. Bronze is the obvious “worst” one but it’s by far the most durable and therefore reliable (it takes a while for a bronze weapon to break, plus it’s the cheapest so it’s super easy to get another one), along with possibly being better at combos. Not by much, mind you, but the difference between an opponent being launched just close enough for you to follow up and them being launched a little too far can matter a lot. Silver is the choice of the hour for the confident players, those who have money to spare, don’t mind needing to replace it relatively soon, and are optimistic things will turn out well for them – getting hit by a silver weapon is BAD and despite the high investment cost it is worth it if you can consistently use it well (even if It screws with your other mechanics a bit). And iron’s exactly what you think it is, not as weak as bronze but not as fragile as silver, a good choice for still getting a power boost without committing that hard to it.

Don’t forget that while swords only lose durability on with the opponent (whether they’re vulnerable, invincible, or shielding), bows lose durability no matter what if they’re used (although they only lose durability once the arrow is fired, so if you land prematurely or get hit it’ll be fine). Therefore, while getting a silver sword will likely play out well unless you suck ass/die/both, the more fragile bows require you make your shots count, and you might want to consider that downside when purchasing.

Nor should you forget that this is the only move Anna spends her gold on… doing nothing but investing for a silver sword can work, but keep in mind that also takes away from using gold other purposes.

Neutral Special: Nest Egg (as a gimmick)

At all times, Anna carries a bag of gold with her. It’s stored in hammerspace so you can’t see it and at the start of the match it doesn’t have much in it, but that’s just how it is sometimes.

This move has two variations, depending on whether you tap or hold the initial input. And because of how both inputs are basically two different moves + there’s a lot to explain for the first input, I’ll explain it like it’s two separate moves to help things stay reasonable.

By tapping, Anna will pull out the bag and open it, peering into it with an expression depending on how much gold is in there (such as a cheeky grin with a satisfying amount, or a pout if there isn’t much left). From there, you have a couple of options – you can either add gold by pressing and holding the button again (Anna will begin to dump gold in at fixed times, 200G every 30 frames) or remove 200G at the same rate by tapping. You can also cancel the move at any time by doing pretty much anything other than press B, and given the fixed rate of depositing and extracting, it’s fully possible for a good player to load/remove gold one frame and cancel the next. Just keep in mind that cancelling isn’t immediate and Anna will be vulnerable for a moment, similar to K. Rool picking up his crown.

Gold comes directly from the aforementioned gimmick and meter – Anna has not only the regular gold counter but also an extra one that displays how much is in her bag. As I said, Anna will start with 2000G “in her pockets”, but her bag will also be automatically loaded with a separate 400G. To put gold into her bag, she pulls from her regular gimmick, subtracting from her regular counter’s amount and adding to the bag (or vice-versa). Due to this, while she can use money she has on hand for multiple things (such as buying weapons or… later moves), money she puts into the bag cannot be used for non-bag-related things unless pulled out again, but as an additional bonus you can never lose bag money from being hit.

Just for clarification, if Anna doesn’t have enough gold to subtract from or add to the bag, that respective action fails – she does the animation without the gold and gives the screen a displeased look. The bag can only contain multiples of 200, just for simplicity’s sake, and caps off at 2000.

With that out of the way, what does gold in the bag do?

The bag has two functions, ive and active. ively, holding gold affects Anna’s stats depending on how much is in there – the more gold in the bag, the heavier and slower Anna gets, increasing her weight + gravity while decreasing her speed and jump heights. This would increase her weight by up to ~1.25X, make her fall noticeably faster, and decrease her movement speeds and jump heights by 0.8X – she’d become as heavy as Wario (who isn’t that heavy but is technically a heavyweight – Bowser and the like are superheavyweights, Wario’s just a heavyweight), but her movement would be significantly worse, only running a little faster than Falco but slower than Wario, having a nuked air speed due to being basically K. Rool’s, and functional but lackluster jumps.

If you want an explanation as to why her regular gold meter doesn’t affect her but the bag does, it is entirely for gameplay purposes; it’s more interesting to me that the regular amount acts as a regular gauge like Hero’s and the investment of the bag directly affects you. As such, just in case, apologies are in order towards Awful regarding the inability to grab people (but still attack them) when your face is missing.

There is a more active change, however – sprinkled throughout Anna’s kit are moves that include her bag being thrown around or swung as a weapon, separate from the durability mechanic yet completely reliant on this one. Obviously, the strength and speed of the bag attacks change depending on how much gold is in there, but to help make the bag worth it, the frame data for the moves aren’t affected as much as you might have expected. We’ll get to those moves eventually, but the idea should be clear.

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Hoo boy.

The intent behind this move is to give Anna a slightly more dynamic playstyle than otherwise – putting gold into her might end up being more of a downgrade than an upgrade, but who knows, perhaps things change throughout a match. It might be similar to the Squirtle/Ivysaur/Charizard scenario, where it’s better to leave the bag empty at lower percentages where a lighter weight is actually beneficial and speed is more important, but as the match goes on, you can gradually (or drastically) raise your weight to survive better and slug the opponent with some moves that went from impractical to terrifying. Or you can play the fun way and start slapping skulls with your retirement funds from the get-go.

Kind of like Granberia, but y’know, balanced better ;)

To be clear though, regarding her standards that involve the bag, DO NOT interpret “weaker” as “weaker but better at comboing” – they’re slower, weaker, and significantly worse than her swords for combos, which were already not that great for chaining moves in the first place. They are bad moves without gold in them. Functional and useable, but bad.

Neutral Special: Nest Egg (as an attack)

I said this move has two variations? We weren’t done yet: if you hold instead of tapping, Anna will instead use the bag as an attack, depending on how much gold is in it. For reference, the bag’s maximum size is roughly the same as the bag she’s sitting on in her official render, and shrinks depending on how little gold’s in it – at 200G it’s a little bigger than her hand.

If you try to use this attack while the bag is completely empty, Anna will throw the sack and do absolutely nothing to the opponent with it – it won’t harm them, it’ll leave her open, and the bag will flutter to the ground. Don’t waste your time with that.

If you use this attack while the bag has somewhere between 200-1000G in it, Anna will wind back and throw it as hard as she can forward. Due to the changing size and weight, the speed, distance and strength of the move changes based on the size of the bag – when it’s little more than a coin purse Anna can sling it like a baseball for a decent projectile in a pinch (going as far as FD and only barely landing on the ledge if you’re standing on the opposite one), at 600G it becomes significantly weightier and Anna can only overhead chuck it a bit more than halfway across FD, and at the maximum 1000G she can huck it about a roll’s distance away at best; 400G and 800G are neatly in between. Getting hit by the bag grows progressively worse and worse too – at minimum G the move deals 7% at most and is more of a gimping/emergency interrupt tool at best (such as if Anna can’t get to a charging opponent in time and has to throw something), but with higher Gs the move starts to feel more like a smash attack with high damage and knockback. In exchange, a bit of startup gets added each time, with the coin purse being rather quick to throw out but the heavy bag taking ~20 frames.

As for 1200G and above… Anna gives up on throwing them and just overhead bonks the opponent in the head with them, Ganon/Dedede style. They are far more similar to each other than the bag throw, each only being progressively slower (1200G being about as slow as or a little slower than Ganon F-Smash, 2000G being slower than Falcon Punch) but bigger/stronger in exchange (you’re probably going to die around 80% center-stage by 1.2KG, and avoid getting hit by 2KG at all costs ‘cuz that one’s a whopper). However, there’s an additional property: Anna drops the bag while swinging it downwards. Onstage that doesn’t mean too much (we’ll get to that), but if Anna’s standing by the ledge… picture Villager bowling ball but getting hit by it is bare minimum as strong as Falcon Punch.

Also at from 1200G onwards the bag spikes as it falls further than a grounded slam, and at 2000G it dunks about as harshly as Ganondorf’s ballerina toe and Dedede’s Up B. Because it’s funny.

Finally, Anna dropping her bag after each use is significant, as she loses the bag in doing so. If it lands onstage, it then sits there, not interacting with or getting in the way of the fighters. But it being there is not meaningless.

While the bag is onstage but not in Anna’s inventory, she cannot use either form of Neutral B or any of her standards involving the bag (if needed, she can still do the animations for them, but they’ll be bagless and similar to Steve at best she’ll get shitty hand hitboxes that basically do nothing but meme) until she gets her bag back, which can happen in two ways. If she gets close to her bag, she can press Neutral B to almost instantly pick it up and put it away, restoring her bag attacks without losing anything. She’ll also instantly get it back if it falls offstage and touches a blast zone… but will lose all of the gold she had in the bag, and it’ll reset to 0G.

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While thinking about this move, I kept flip-flopping between having the bag be interactable with the opponent or not. If the opponent can’t do anything about it, it’s far easier for Anna to play around with it, change her playstyle on the fly much easier (partially rewarding good placement and space management), and removes a bit of weight from the player’s shoulders as it’s one less thing to worry about. But if I made it interactable, there’s then an additional factor of potential fun where it not only slightly screws with certain opponents (forcing someone to move around or attack an obstacle that never despawns normally is fun) but also encouraging a bit of risk/reward thinking on the opponent’s part in certain situations, such as choosing between attempting to gimp Anna or kicking the bag further out of her reach and/or offstage. Both are options I’m fond of, and I fully wrote out the explanation for the latter initially.

Ultimately however, I want both the light bag and heavy bag playstyles to be as equal as possible, and while I think it’s fine to lose the bag in exchange for that frankly ridiculous edgeguarding projectile/have to go get it back if it lands onstage, I think letting the opponent dispose of it punishes heavy bag-preferring Anna players a little too much.

All that being said, while this move is pretty good in certain situations, it’s absolutely more of a gimmick/highly situational extra option, and I believe that’s fine given how the other version of this move works. You can either hard read an opponent at certain times in neutral for one hell of a smack (either at range or just flat-out Falcon Punch ‘em), or you can be rewarded for good timing by completely shutting down certain recoveries with one good hit. Additionally, while it gets far slower and harder to do as the bag gets heavier, you can also use this move to simply set the bag down and temporarily switch back to your speedy form without taking the time to unload the bag and reload it later, made especially useful in a pinch since picking the bag back up takes no time at all.

I don’t think this is a super defining move of Anna’s kit, but it’s definitely something for the opponent to watch out for.

Standards:

As I’ve mentioned before, Anna’s standards can be very nearly separated into four categories: sword, bow, bag, and staff, each of them having extremely similar purposes. Hence the reason behind the initial formatting of this blog – since they’re ultimately so similar, in the “regular” blog I can group them together, spending less time on individual moves while still giving a sufficient and satisfying amount of information.

But since details are kiiiiiinda important regarding FFC and those Discord tournaments, I’ll talk about all of them here. And hey, since I’m finishing this first before doing the original blog, I can simplify what I said here in that blog rather than work upwards from my draft notes.

Anyways, here’s the last wacky move for a little bit, then I’ll let you breathe.

Grounded Attacks:

Jab:

Anna pulls out a Hexing Rod and casts the spell, creating a short-range projectile in front of her (basically acting as a decent-sized hitbox since it doesn’t move). While it deals no damage and lightly sends the opponent away with weak set knockback, the move instead lowers the opponent’s weight stat by 7 units, the effect only going away when they lose a stock.

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This move is a bit on the unusual side, as it technically does the same thing almost every move in the game does, just in a slightly unusual way. Instead of damaging the opponent or directly killing them, finishing them off later becomes significantly easier in a way that not many characters can work around. The main point of this is that this does not help the opponent whatsoever, nor is there much they can do about it. Your character can heal? Doesn’t matter when the damage done to them isn’t compatible with that. The opponent used a counter on your really strong move? Doesn’t do more than the bare minimum threshold a counter has since it didn’t do any damage. The opponent benefits from taking damage in some way, like Aura or Arcene? Nope, no benefits for you.

This is compensated a little bit, though – Anna’s Jab isn’t that great, it’s kind of like if Ganon’s was slower, noticeably easier to punish, couldn’t combo into anything no matter what and just generally didn’t have the advantages Ganon’s Jab has. Landing Jab in neutral is mildy hard and kind of like landing a Smash Attack for most characters, it’s not unreasonably slow (nothing past 20 frames) but it’s way easier to do anything else. That and you’re simply hurting them for later, this is not a kill option whatsoever, and while it’s not unsafe on hit it’s not exactly putting the opponent in a bad spot.

Also, this move is a projectile for a reason – you can reflect it back at Anna, and despite it not dealing damage, the reflector WILL multiply the weight loss. So if Villager pockets it with their 1.8X multiplier for example, expect the poor sap who gets hit by it to suddenly shave 13 units off their weight, assuming the game rounds up.

Still… damage the opponent literally cannot reverse. I wonder how Anna would do against Granberia if she could land multiple of these per stock.

Forward Tilt:

Anna reaches forward and jabs her sword straight sideways. A very fast and lengthy attack that can be angled, but lacks vertical range compared to other swordies.

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Not going to lie, this is almost directly taken from Roy in Project +, I just really liked using the move there and I felt like it’s something better than the usual sword swipes. Not that you won’t get typical sword swipes in this blog, they’re absolutely coming, but still.

This is a very simple move and is supposed to be one, you use it to poke people at range, it’s alright for either 2-framing or hitting vulnerable opponents hanging on the ledge, and the power behind it could be better but isn’t bad (deals ~9% and has average kill power). It’s really good out of a pivot though.

Up Tilt:

Anna does the most generic upwards sword swipe you could imagine. Very similar to Lucina’s, a little slower on startup in exchange for a little less endlag, with similar power.

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Yep.

Keep in mind, I absolutely want Anna to have one or two generic moves. The thing about generic moves is that they work, they’re reliable, you know exactly how to use them and they work in a sizeable amount of situations. And given how wack and variable Anna’s kit can be, I think it’s good for her to have some simple stuff.

Down Tilt:

Anna jabs the hilt of her sword forward close to the ground, likely bashing the shins of a nearby opponent. Has pretty bad range in exchange for being extremely fast and kind of spammable.

Isn’t affected by durability nor the type of sword you’re using, you can D-Tilt as much as you want with the intended benefits.

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Normally, the expected sword D-Tilt is good for poking and occasionally followups at lower percentages; their quick speed and solid range make them excellent for low-commitment attacks. Anna’s sacrifices range in exchange for being kind of absurd up close and against shields, as it’s VERY safe on block (allowing you to mix up grabs, roll reads, etc. – if you do it again it punishes grab and spotdodge easily) and if they get hit the “pathetically” low knockback will almost guarantee a followup. Maybe not a Smash Attack followup, but a followup nonetheless.

Just keep in mind that if the opponent isn’t grounded this almost certainly won’t hit them – this has basically zero vertical range yet isn’t low enough to hit most characters on the ledge, although depending on their 2-frame or hanging animation it might hit them regardless.

Forward Smash:

Anna pulls out THE BAG and overhead slams it forwards, similar to the attack portion of her Neutral B. Pretty fast without gold yet doesn’t get too much slower as the bag grows, eventually becoming one of the strongest F-Smashes in the game while still being around the same speed as something like Ganon F-Smash.

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If anything, Anna’s F-Smash is pretty good for what it is, but at the same time it’s often a heavyweight F-Smash. It can work well, it can wreck, and it doesn’t lose out on speed much, but at the end of the day, it’s not the easiest thing in the world to land and if you REALLY want power behind it you absolutely have to have a decent amount of gold in there, otherwise it’s like if Mythra’s F-Smash actually acted as d and didn’t kill until relatively late percentages.

I’d like to highlight one of Anna’s problems, she can struggle to kill at times given her options are either holding out for Silver stuff, or landing Jab/her bag moves (which are often kind of slow). She can kill, but it’s not that easy for her compared to other characters I’ve seen and/or judged.

Also, you might ask why you’d use the attack version of Neutral B instead of this, given it’s also really strong but doesn’t lose the bag nor come out on Frame 200something. Well, F-Smash isn’t an air-useable Falcon Punch/Amyr bowling ball that slam jam spikes people so hard they’re on screen for one frame and dead the next. Your pick on which one is more stylish.

Up Smash:

Anna pulls out her bow and fires an arrow diagonally upwards and forwards, which arcs after a while similar to the Belmont’s axe. Normally travels at a 45-degree angle and arcs after a decent distance, but can be angled a bit up or forward. Charging increases the speed of the projectile, increasing how far it goes along with how strong it is.

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And here is the first of… two bow moves. Only two, but they’re significant enough that I think Anna only needs two.

This has a couple of applications, both of them indeed similar to the Belmont axe but HEY it’s on a normal and can be variable depending on which type of bow you’re using. Not only is it a decent way to harshly snuff out certain aerial approaches, but due to the arc it’s also good for gimping if you’ve got the timing and spacing down right; again, Belmont axe, but picture it doesn’t despawn until it hits a blast zone.

How I picture the move is that it doesn’t have too much startup (a reasonable amount, probably around ~12-14 frames) but has a lot of endlag to compensate – the main thing I don’t want this move to be is Snake U-Smash, and letting Anna rain down arrows from above rapidly isn’t okay. It’s more fun to reward skillful snipes, isn’t it?

Down Smash:

Anna whips out a staff and casts Silence: if the opponent is hit by it, they will lose the ability to use any of their Specials (including any gimmick ones they might have such as fighting game input stuff or Shield Specials) for somewhere between 8 and 24 seconds, depending on how much you charge the attack.

Everything else is identical to Jab.

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ittedly I’m a little unsure how much this fits. During research for her kit I combed through a lot of different staves and whatnot for Anna to use since both her Awakening and Fates incarnations use them, but there were only a few that I felt would be good in her kit, and this was obviously one of them.

…Do I need to explain the implications behind being unable to use Specials for a while? If the opponent gets smacked by this it could be *quite* bad for them. Not horribly screwed, most characters can function relatively fine with their standards alone… the only thing that really comes to mind are custom characters who entirely rely on their Specials, or if the opponent needs to recover, in which case it’s their fault for screwing up that badly.

Friendly reminder though, don’t let this get reflected. That’d suck, wouldn’t it?

Dash Attack:

Anna slashes forward once, then slashes again from the position the last slash ended – think of the animation as like a grounded version of Lucina’s N-Air, but moving forward.

Very quick startup and solid reward, but has a hefty amount of endlag making it a risky but rewarding move to pull out.

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i’d be lying if i said this was particularly inspired

apologies for the throwaway

uhhhhhh don’t get hit by this, if you do you might die, shielding is pretty effective against it though, just watch out for the fast startup

kinda like k. rool’s without the armor if anything

Aerials/Throws:

Neutral Air:

Anna pulls out her bow again and fires straight forward, the arrow arcing after travelling about 2/3rds of FD’s length. A pretty slow aerial (startup is around 20 frames, endlag isn’t much better) compensated for the range and potential strength of the arrow, depending on the bow.

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In the original kit, Anna had at least one extra bow move, for some reason I had F-Air shoot an arrow sideways and D-Air shot an arrow downwards. That latter move felt unnecessary and took up the slot of a move that could have been something else, but I’m keeping this one.

You lose a reliable geddoffmi N-Air, but instead you get a pretty solid projectile that’s good for spacing and even better for gimping (think Byleth’s Neutral B but actually good, just no cancelling), and a projectile that can be upgraded via iron or silver bows no less. You should be a bit more careful with bows as they get stronger, since unlike swords they break regardless of whether you hit something or not, so coupled with the potential vulnerability it’s best you make your shots count.

Although there’s nothing wrong with a good point-blank shot in the case F-Air isn’t strong enough or B-Air isn’t an option at the moment…

Forward Air:

Anna slashes diagonally forward. Acts as a slight middle ground between a completely vertical or horizontal swipe, packing a little extra vertical range than a sideways swipe with the lingering hitbox while still having a hitbox that is instantly forwards.

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Dressing it up all I want doesn’t really change the fact that it’s a generic swordie F-Air. But hopefully it at least has a solid purpose and identity.

It’s quick, reliable, and sends the opponent at a nice sideways angle while still being decent for killing (even iron isn’t shabby at it), but isn’t great in the combo department, nor does it really let you keep up the pressure. More often than not, the best thing you can do after landing one at lower or mid percentages is just shoot an arrow and hope for the best, unless you’re willing to charge in for another attempt at neutral.

Back Air:

Anna pulls out the bag and overhead swings it (again) behind her back. As expected, speed and power changes depending on the fullness of the bag, but while it’s relatively fast with a lackluster bag, it’s still not that slow even with a full bag (only about 17 or 18 frames at most), despite packing strength comparable if not superior to K. Rool’s.

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Back Air is probably (or at least supposed to be) one of the main incentives to become monke-I mean heavy. Sure you live longer and other bag moves are stronger too, but being able to just run up and cave in some skulls with an incredibly strong B-Air is always something the opponent should fear; it’s an option during landing, approaching, whiff punishing, edgeguarding, gimping… Don’t underestimate the possibility of randomly dying.

While the lag overall isn’t that bad (fair startup, and you don’t instantly die if you use this move offstage), do be careful while landing with it – it gets worse the heavier you are, so while the strength of the bag is pretty good against shields, you’re going to be left wide open if you mess up or their balloon doesn’t pop.

Also no, doesn’t spike, sorry. Too similar to K. Rool’s if it spikes.

Up Air:

Anna winds up before swiping upwards. While very similar in animation to something like Chrom or Lucy U-Air, the timing is wildly off, with a far slower startup and far less end/landing lag.

Also has significantly higher hitstun than might be expected.

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The other move heavily inspired by P+, specifically one of my favorite things about that game. It’s also similar to a pretty common thing in Rivals of Aether, if you’ve played that game.

Basically, this move can be pretty difficult to initially land. It’s got startup like a Sephiroth aerial and doesn’t have any additional range or power to compensate… but once you land that first hit, once you snag it off of a hard read on an aerial opponent or for a solid B-Air-like punish while landing, the tiny landing lag combined with the increased hitstun means this move juggles people like crazy. As long as you can read the opponent’s DI and their percentage isn’t too high (or you aren’t using a silver sword), you can keep smacking them for quite a few hits, before either ending the chain with a good separate aerial or going for a strong read. As appealing as this might be, constantly going for this isn’t something I recommend, as it gets predictable and punishable real quick. But still, if you do land it, that’s a lot of potential damage Anna is otherwise lacking a bit.

On the flip side, while the expected problem of being rather unwieldy as a traditional U-Air is there, the other problem is this move kind of gets worse the better your sword is. I think in a different timeline we absolutely could make U-Air even more unique by amplifying the sword’s benefits (i.e. silver turns this move into an aerial Smash Attack that deletes people), but in this case, just to be safe, I think keeping it as a monstrous combo tool early game and leaving it as a still-effective-but-far-less-so hard punisher is fine.

If you think this strays too far from the rest of Anna’s kit (her overall being lackluster at combos + this move inherently conflicts with her gimmick), that’s fair, but I think a tool like this could be pretty cool.

Down Air:

Anna whips out the bag and flips upside down, holding it underneath her.

Along with the obvious traits, this move carries a few extra ones. For starters, the bag becomes an invincible hurtbox varying in size – depending on the size of the opponent’s aerials and the girth of your bag, this can potentially prevent certain aerials from reaching Anna.

Secondly, the hitbox changes based on how Anna is moving while using it: it completely lacks a hitbox if she isn’t falling (such as jumping and immediately using the move) and is only a mediocre attack while falling normally for the most part (only super heavy bags deal solid damage/knockback), when used while fastfalling the bag is much stronger and spikes.

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So there’s a few things to unpack from this.

As an attack… eh? It’s decently fast to come out and lasts a while (I’d say it lasts roughly as long as Link’s D-Air), but the regular version is never particularly strong or worth using over other moves, and it’s completely useless offensively as long as Anna is riwards if you try to use it out of a jump. Even the fastfall version is rather questionable, sure it spikes pretty harshly and is quite damaging, but it’s not great at killing opponents onstage, and if you try to fastfall offstage, even if you hit the opponent you’re probably going to die due to how long this move lasts for. This does have the effect of making it even more disrespectful though, so at least there’s that.

But the shield is easily the best part of this move… assuming you have a decently large bag, at least. It’s not perfect or that effective at times, it’s completely reliant on you either having a really large bag or going up against a character with a short upwards move (if it’s tall enough it’ll clip through regardless, if you’re fighting Dedede or Sephiroth for example this move will probably almost never work), yet you must be able to imagine how strong it is to not just armor through something but completely nullify it, all through the power of BAG. Plus, even if the spike hitbox isn’t that strong onstage, it still deals quite a bit of damage and puts them in a bad spot (directly above you, while you have the advantage).

Don’t rely on this move too often as a landing tool, for the sake of balance this move has relatively lengthy landing lag and you’re likely going to be kind of screwed if the opponent just waits, dodges or shields this. But like a counter, the opponent’s fucked if they try to contest a particularly fat bag.

Throws:

No matter the context, no matter the character, no matter the audience, I’m pretty sure I can just lump throws together into one or two little piles, making the document a little less tall and hopefully letting you move on quicker.

Anna’s pummel is definitely the most unique thing she has out of a grab: damage-wise it’s intentionally not great, it deals noticeably less damage than a lot of the cast, and even at higher percentages she’s only racking on a couple of extra points (at 120% she’d probably only be able to get ~3.5% at most). However… while most moves have a pretty basic conversion rate regarding how much gold Anna gets from hitting the opponent (1% = 100G), her pummel instead bumps the ratio up to 500G per 1%. And the pummels are very rapid, as long as you have a good grasp on the timing and how long an opponent will take to mash out, Anna can get a ton of extra gold off of her grabs, and this is without counting the money her actual throws give her.

Unfortunately, the rest of the throws are mostly whatever. F-Throw and B-Throw are Anna baseball-bat smacking the opponent away with the blunt side of her sword and performing the legendary ground-shattering suplex B-Throw respectively, F-Throw’s a little better at launching and B-Throw’s a little better damage-wise but both are only alright at best (not killing until relatively late percentages, nor dealing more damage than 7-10%). U-Throw is also a pretty generic combo tool, I don’t even know what the animation for it is, but if it’s copied from Dedede’s volleyball set toss that’d amuse me.

Down Throw is at least a little unique – Anna smacks the opponent onto their ass before YET AGAIN overhead dunking their face with her bag of money. You know the drill, the more money in the bag the better it is, especially given how much damage this move deals + it’s the only one that can really kill (a full bag kills Mario center stage around 135%, not too bad for a throw). But try not to use it when your bag is light, the endlag of the move never improves so it’ll never combo, and you’d more likely get more damage/reward from your other throws.

The Other Specials:

Hey, we’re almost done. Just gotta cover the last two Specials, which I promise are far simpler than the other two and a half.

But maybe not that simple.

Up Special: Rescue/Hammerne

Neutral B? This move has two different variations, although they depend on whether Anna is airborne or not instead of how the button is pressed.

In the air, Anna performs a very, very standard teleport via casting Rescue. It’s a little bit better or worse than the one Palu and Mewtwo use, it starts a couple of frames slower but lets her go noticeably further (about a Bowser-width’s extra distance) and leaves her in less landing lag (still puts her in freefall), but it’s still basically their move.

On the ground, however, Anna pulls out a very different staff and begins to cast Hammerne. Due to the length of the move (it takes a full second and a half to activate) and a second gimmick I’ll cover very soon, Anna can either shield or stop holding B (assuming she didn’t tap to start it) to cancel the move without much lag, but if she successfully casts the spell, all of her weapons/items will fully regain their maximum durability, allowing her to keep using them for a while longer.

The Hammerne staff will then promptly break.

Unlike Jab and Down Smash, which have unlimited uses for simplicity’s sake, both versions of Up B have an additional durability meter, separate both from her swords and bows but also each other. Upon successful use, both Rescue and Hammerne damage themselves – while Rescue isn’t THAT fragile and can sustain 4 uses before breaking, Hammerne is so powerful that it can only be used once before you lose it.

Instead of filling more space in Down B, both staffs can be rebought by using their respective inputs again after they break. Rescue is a relatively cheap and reasonable item to buy again, it only costs 2000G, which shouldn’t be too difficult to manage. Hammerne, on the other hand, costs a whopping 10KG to replace, making it far more valuable.

Also yes, Hammerne repairs Rescue.

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(Just as a note to the judges, Rescue’s durability is something I’m happy to adjust up or down given how unbalanced or underpowered it might be. I think 4 is a reasonable amount and a good weight on the player’s shoulders, but if you three think otherwise, just let me know and we can work something out.)

Two offhand things: Technically there are two teleporting staffs (Warp and Rescue), and Rescue’s the one that teleports allies over to the ’s spot, so it might technically be wrong to call it Rescue, even if Warp doesn’t let the warp themselves around either. The only thing I’m going to say is that I like calling it Rescue WAAAAAY more than I want to call another move Warp or Teleport.

Secondly, Hammerne was nearly going to be Heal, it was only while writing Up B that I decided it’s kind of lame to just give Anna a mediocre heal as a rather unfitting bonus, so thankfully I ed this stupid staff exists.

As for the move itself… yeah. I don’t think we need to spend too much time on them as moves, Hammerne in particular is just your last resort repair button and Rescue is a pretty bog-standard teleport in a void. But I do want to highlight the nature of limited recovery uses.

With Robin and Hero it’s pretty downplayed, Robin can lose her wind tome and shit out a new one multiple times faster than she can lose it in the first place, and Hero gets back MP pretty quickly along with having access to Zoom so if you’re forced to use Up B and you’re out of mana it’s almost guaranteed to be your fault… and it’s still not that bad with Anna, but with her it’s a very tangible part of her resource that she loses close to every time she has to recover or use her Up B in some way. 20% worth of damage might not seem like much but when that can get drained multiple times per match, you’re losing some of it by getting hit throughout the match ( you lose 60 for every 1% taken, and only gain 100 respectively), AND you’re trying to spend the gold on other things like her bag, weapons, Side B, or saving for a Hammerne.

If you play well, be stingy with Up B whenever possible (jump + airdodge should help decently at lower to mid percentages, as long as you don’t get gimped too much), and just generally be careful, things shouldn’t be too bad, and I don’t think Anna is crippled by this downside. But this is a downside nonetheless.

These do not reset on death by the way, you don’t just get a free Hammerne every stock, you get one at the start of the match and that’s it. 10000G is one hell of a lot of gold to spend on one thing so you best be careful with it.

Side Special: Spendthrift

Credit to Expand for the initial idea, by the way.

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Upon use, Anna… I’m not sure what Anna does. Crouch a little and enter a pose where she can very quickly rush forwards, I suppose.

Upon use, Anna will enter the designated Side B pose, getting ready. Exactly what the move does again depends on the input, but by tapping (to initiate) and then holding the button (second input), Anna will begin to lose gold at a steady pace, about 1000G per second, converting it into charge for this move. The move will cap at 5000G, with the charge being indicated by Anna glowing (a soft, infrequent glow at 500G, compared to a consistent strong glow at max capacity). If you try to give her more when she’s already at her max, she’ll just sit there, not losing gold but not gaining anything either, just wasting everyone’s time. This is all standard shield-cancelable stuff otherwise, and Anna retains her charge between cancels.

Once you wish to use it, by simply holding the button for about 20-22 frames (which is also the move’s startup), Anna will zoom straight forwards, doing a very anime attack (especially anime since you don’t lose any height if you use this in the air). This consumes all of the charge she currently has, but depending on how much gold she puts into it, the move gets progressively better and better.

Don’t bother trying to use the move without spending more than 500G, if you do then Anna will either launch from her spot and instantly faceplant (if she’s grounded) or fumble similarly to a useless Banjo Wonderwing if you use it in the air. The grounded trip may or may not have a hitbox, but if it does, it’s so useless it’s like it doesn’t.

From 500G to 2000G, the move isn’t bad. If it weren’t for the cost of use it’d be one of Anna’s most reliable kill moves, given it always comes out at a consistent time, has decent range (Anna zooms forward about 1/3rd of FD), and is quite stronk with a decent amount of gold put into it – with around 1500-2000G the opponent will die around 110%. Not bad.

Things get a little more interesting between 2001-4999G, because while the strength gradually ramps up as expected, Anna also begins to gain armor during the full startup and duration of the move (although it wears off during endlag). At the minimum threshold Anna only gains 5% armor, but it steadily grows by 1% every 100G she dumps in, and by the time she reaches 25 points of armor (4000G dumped) she instead gains full super armor. As a reminder of the strength, this move starts to kill opponents around 70% around the end of the charging threshold, which is pretty good.

But at the full 5000G charge, Anna becomes completely invincible for the entire startup of the move and duration of the zoom, along with going a full half of FD distance-wise. Additionally, this move’s killpower jumps from 70% to 50%. The startup does receive a nerf to at least slightly compensate, going up to about 28-30 frames instead (think Ganon F-Smash again), but still. Also if we want to get flashy, have some crit effects from FE Awakening (or whatever game her skin comes from) play, maybe darken the screen a little.

Each version deals a sizeable chunk of shield damage, even the 500-2000G versions deal a decent amount, and getting blitzed by a medium-charge Side B is pretty bad for your shield’s health. But to rub in how stylish and probably wasteful full-charge Side B is, it instantly breaks shields, so uh… don’t shield that.

All versions have the same startup (ignoring 5000G’s) and endlag, endlag which leaves her quite open.

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The main reason this, Neutral B, Down B and Hammerne all have tap and hold inputs isn’t just for the ability to use multiple different things, but it’s also to make sure that you don’t accidentally use the wrong thing – it’d suck ass if you misinputted Up B instead of Side B or something and you randomly blew your only Hammerne unintentionally, or blew Side B’s charge in a similar situation, so to make sure the is completely certain about what they’re doing, these systems are in place.

Unless your controller is broken, but in that case you’re kind of screwed anyways.

Do I need to tone this down? This is definitely silly, but I think it’s at least slightly alright.

First, the cost. I’m not just going to say full charge eats an entire 50% of hard work that could have been spent on other things or lost via damage or Rescue use, because that’s only if the Anna player only goes for the fully charged version. Buuuuuut, the good versions of this move still burns quite a bit of gold, gold you have to be absolutely certain you’ll spend well via this one single-use move.

Second… the move’s still kind of slow on startup, and even with the ridiculous max-money version the endlag is rather severe. Yeah it might break your shield, but if it doesn’t, Anna is practically asking to get hit, not to mention how open she is if it whiffs or you dodged or something. All that is pretty self-explanatory.

Also, Anna for the most part can’t combo into this, MAYBE U-Air might but if it does and that’s a problem it’s super easy to nerf it without nerfing U-Air too much. And no matter what she uses, she can’t combo into the full charge version, that’s too slow.

With all that being said, this should be a fun alternative to Anna’s gameplay – it’s maybe not the safest, most reliable, most optimal, or most practical way to play her, but hey, if you wanna burn some cash in exchange for a pocket nuke in the form of some weeb’s greatest fantasy, this move lets you do exactly that.

As a final word of advice, try not to be the dumbass who spends 5000G on charging and then proceeds to die. If you die, you lose any charge you had, to add a little bit of extra fun and risk to the move.

Farewell:

Hey, thanks for reading through the whole thing. If you’re a judge, sorry for the bloat or if any moves are too complicated or simple, and if you’re a contestant, good luck in the tournaments~

As a point of reference, I wrote this one before the less formal version – well, I started writing the less formal version first, but stopped, copy/pasted + slightly rewrote the progress I had with stuff like the stats and Down Special, then wrote from there in this version. So if you read the other version, I’ll have written that one with reference to me explaining all of her moves (hopefully) properly.

Overall I think I’ll focus more on returning to the old Green Screen/Nightmare/OC Anna method I used to have for writing formal movesets if I need to (back when the top half was just the move’s animation and the bottom half had everything else), I think the halves of the description are starting to get a bit too muddled and I’d like to reset them at least once to see if they were indeed better back then.

And I’m a bit worried about the general quality of the standards… ittedly I’m really proud of the Specials, but some of the regular attacks were a drag to write and think about, so I’m unsure how enjoyable it’ll be to read/review parts of this blog. Others should be fine, but as a whole… hmm.

Anyways, seeya.