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Arya Stark is an Assassin character who focuses on Horizontal damage and kills, but can combo Vertically, and kill Vertically when you master her combos. She is hard to use, but if you train with this character, she excels at racking up damage quickly, can do long combo strings, and has access to other character’s abilities, allowing her to mix-up combos and attacks. She is very good once she gets in the opponent’s face, allowing quick burst combos. If you can’t start those combos however, she struggles heavily to get going against characters that cancel her approach, especially against characters with good projectile pressure.
Arya Stark Match-Up Chart
Arya doesn’t do well against characters with fast projectiles or characters that can zone her away. Some moves to look out for are..
Characters that can zone Arya with projectiles and ruin her approach, or destroy her dagger, are serious problems for her. She doesn’t have much range, and so you must either dodge these, or get hit and attempt to approach again. Jerry is especially hard to deal with, as he can follow up with additional quarks, which stop your momentum by knocking you back a bit. Fighting these match-ups require you to predict when they are going to throw out these moves, so you can dodge and get in their face. Batarang can be tricky since it can be angled, and you have to deal with it coming back as well. Jerry is fast, and can bring additional projectiles to the other side of the arena. You can kill Jerry in two Aerial Down Attacks, but are unable to kill him in one hit, so be careful if trying to kill Jerry to make sure Tom doesn’t capitalize on the distraction. Morty has multiple ways to ward off your knife, and your main combo starting attacks. Patience is key in this match-up, and you must try to be unpredictable so Morty doesn't ruin your approach with grenades every time.
Characters like Iron Giant or Superman are better match-ups for Arya Stark. Iron Giant’s only defense against your combos are his Armored Bolts (Neutral Special) but otherwise, you can hit him with a lot of your combos easily and rack up tons of damage. With Superman, he needs to get close to you to start most of his combos, but a lot of his approaching aerial attacks, like her Aerial Neutral Attack, can be easily dodged and counter attacked with your moves that dodge then strike. Things like your Grounded Neutral Attack and your Grounded Down Attack can counter most of his approaches very well. Armored moves can usually be dealt with using these moves as well, or by using your Side Special when dagger is on cooldown. This is a multi-hit armor breaker with good duration and a decent disjointed hitbox when your catching opponents charging moves or when they try to dodge out of the way.
Best Perks for Arya Stark
For Attack Perks, Snowball Effect is very nice, as Arya can rack up damage quite quickly, making the perk active more often then not. Especially good for leveling the field if you get rung out first, combined with her backstab mechanic, can help you finish off enemies while your either in the lead, or if you need to make it even. Persuasive Power Punch and Up, Up, and A-Slay help secure kills faster and do more damage during your combos. These damage boosting perks do even more damage when you can consistently backstab your opponent, helping you further. For Arya, you should have more utility perks rather then attack perks, as movement is much more important than some extra percent on Arya.
For Defense Perks, Clear the Air synergizes very well with one of Arya’s passive abilities. As Arya, when you neutral dodge an attack, you get a Turn Attack buff (like what your Down Special gives) for a while. With this perk, you also destroy projectiles when you neutral dodge them. This can be good against Batman, where you neutral dodge the projectile, forcing it in to a breakable state for you to hit, as well as gaining Turn Attack in the process. School Me Once… helps against Tom & Jerry, specifically his dynamite sticks ( Aerial Down Special). Toon Elasticity helps with survivability, helping you last longer as Arya takes 14% increased damage due to being an Assassin class character.
For Utility Perks, I Dodge, You Dodge, We Dodge also synergizes well with Arya’s passive ability. This perks reduces cooldown when you dodge an attack, so if you neutral dodge something, you reduce your knife (Side Special) and your Turn Attack cooldown. You will also gain a brief Turn Attack buff, due to Arya’s passive, helping rack up damage while some of your skills are on cooldown. Leg Day Champ gives you higher jump height, which is handy when trying to secure kills with up-air, or if you need to jump over projectiles or the opponent charging attacks. Finally, Tasmanian Trigonometry helps you live longer, and negate some earlier kill combos other characters have by increasing the chances of escaping the combo or from being killed. You want to have some of these Utility Perks in your loadout at almost all times. Arya is light, and very combo heavy, but can greatly benefit from more survivability or movement speed.
Trophy is her best signature perk, it gives you 5 Face Stacks, which allow you to use the Neutral Ground or Air Attack of the opponent you just killed. This allows you to have more options when the enemy respawns, and gives you access to new ways to extend or start combos. Things like Reindog’s Neutral Projectile, or Harley Quinn’s Neutral Aerial Attack are great moves for Arya to use and combo off of. Her other perk is usually in doubles only, and requires you to hit your ally with your dagger, instead of the enemy. This removes your best combo starting tool, so overall Trophy is better as it gives more options to use, and doesn’t incentivize using your dagger on your ally rather then your opponent. Getting Face Stacks also allows a slow but strong AoE Stun ability around her, which is extremely potent.
Placement in the Tier List
Arya is a strong, but very difficult to learn character that struggles heavily against certain match-ups. Her combo potential is possibly the best in the game, and her unique mechanics allow her to damage opponents quickly. However, she is akin to a glass cannon, and can die at earlier percents against a lot of other characters. She also has a tougher time killing and finishing her opponent then other characters do, making her even more difficult to pick-up and and play efficiently. If you take a while to learn her, and use her unique mechanics and moves effectively, then Arya is very strong and can seem unbeatable once you master this character. Her B+ Rank position is due to her very strong potential and combo capability, but only is held back by her difficulty, low ranged attacks. and some hard to face match-ups. It is also influenced by the changes to her Aerial Up Attack, which you can now DI out easier of. This makes Arya's combo potential in the air more difficult to connect attacks together when using that move.
