Samus L-cancel... necessary or no?

[Eljin]

Is he l-cancel really necessary or no... i dont use fair to much cause it's laggy but with the nair, could you say it's necessary. Usually i just dtilt or down smash out of her nair. and should i use wd as her movement rather than running all the time or just wd for dodging sake?

[Charoo]

You should use l cancel all the time. Even if it help you by a nano second. Eliminating lag is always a plus. Also if you l cancel her f air when they sheild, you be ready to attack while they still in the sheild.

[Eljin]

sounds good, usually after a sheilded attack I grab... I wish her grab came out faster. Thats the only bad part bout it, its slow. What about wd ing?

[b3nz0r]

WDing is definitely a MUST. She runs so slow that wavedashing is...essential.

[Eljin]

SOUNDS REALLY REALLY GOOD... thx b3nz0r and Charoo

[Aftermath]

yeah, lcanceling is definitely necessary. and despite what it may look like all samus' aerials have 15 frames of lag un-lcanceled, and 7 lcancelled, even though fair's lag looks twice as long as nair's. also, even lcanceled samus can't avoid being sheildgrabbed. and i would start using wding as your main method of movement, i try to in matches and i find that it comes in handy often, somehow one sleep deprived night, i was outrunning a cf all over the place, he couldn't land a single hit on me! so definitely good to perfect.

[Testament]

As I told you at Deezie's, Crunch; L-cancel into Screw Attack can protect you from shield grabs. It's also quite safe against pretty much everyone (possible exception of Falcon, but Samus doesn't fair too well in that match up anyway) so long as you don't DI towards them when you're falling back to the ground. Invincibility on start up combined with instant start up can't really be beat; the only situation where SA won't help is if you sex kick an opponent's shield when you're still in the air, since you'll be grabbed before you touch the ground. The SA also works beautifully out of shields, especially against Falco and Fox since their attack range is pitiful (outside of their blasters). The nil start up time on the SA allows you to throw it in between their attacks when you're shielding; you can't deny the usefulness of that since Samus really doesn't have many options when shielding against those two. Wavedashes, side steps, and bombs can only help so much.

[Aftermath]

NOOO!!!! Screw Attack sucks!! as for doing it so you don't get shield grabbed, if the enemy doesn't actually go for it or pauses for an instant, you're helpless in the air, and if you do hit them... 12% i think, that is pitiful.

Sa should not be used out of the shield either, you know what's better? jump out and sex kick, you can get it where you do the kick on the first frame you leave the ground, so it would have the same start up and be virtually invincible, stopped marth fsmashes doing this.

oh yeah, i haven't been able to wd as well i was at tg6 since i got back :( but i did find a possible infinite shine type thing for falco, so yeah...

[Testament]

12% that adds up over a match (people use Fox's blaster; it does, what? 1-3%, and doesn't even stun; but the damage accumulates throughout the match). Fox, flaco, and other short ranged melee characters get eaten alive by the SA; it gives Lunaris' flaco problems, and I've heard from Chillin that his Fox has issues with it as well. Now, I'm not saying it should be spammed like mad; but to write it off as useless is just stupid.

As far as using it to stop potential shield grabs go; the only times it couldn't be considered safe is if you used it when the opponent was out of range (duh), and if their shield was at max. Only...they had their shield up to stop your incoming aerial, so their shield really shouldn't be at max. If there's a shred of skin showing, they get hit, and you get away with it. Should it be abused? No. Should it be thrown in from time to time to make your opponent think twice about attempting anything? Yes.

Sex kicking out of the shield is fine and dandy, but if you get shielded (or miss), you're just as screwed as you'd be if you whiffed the SA. The sex kick also doesn't offer too much protection from behind. Some players like to start up aerials in front of you, and finish them by landing behind you; a habit most likely picked up to prevent shield grabbing. The SA covers you from all sides, and has a high chance of eating through shields; something the sex kick can't do (except against special cases like Mewtwo). The two main advantages I'd give the sex kick over SA as far as post-shield usage goes are:

1) you can chain sex kicks on a few characters at specific %s.

2) can be used against characters with long, disjointed hitboxes (i.e. Marth, Roy, Link)

1 is self explanatory; if your opponent isn't in that category and wouldn't be KO'd by the sex kick, then it won't be any more useful than the SA. I've already explained 2; I said that the SA is best used (out of the shield) against short-ranged characters. Marth, Roy, and Link clearly don't fit the bill; and since it's quite possible for you to be in their range, but not vice versa; the SA shouldn't be used nearly as often (only when you're positive they'll be in range for it).

Btw...what title did I "win" for beating you that night at Deezie's? :D

[HoodedHomie1234]

dont try giving advice to james, hes pretty convinced hes the best samus ever

[Aftermath]

yeah, tyler, you needs to call me and we need to practice sometime.

Anyway, on to my nonsensical ramblings...... Testament, if my memory serves me correctly, and i'm sure everyone watching could back me up, i believe i won more of our matches that night.

But whatever, I bow down to you as the best samus player ever, and it's all because of your use of the upb... i concede that it is the best move because although it has almost no more range than the sex kick out of shield, and when it's finished hitting anyone, no matter who it is, chances are very high that they will be able to hit you back, whether it is a sheik fair-ing you afterwards, or a fox, simply fastfalling and then usmashing you upon your return to the ground, it is definitely THE BEST option in any situation. I mean, who cares if you can simply ftilt someone multiple times across the stage for 20-30%, but the 12% no combo-ability of the upb is far superior in every way.

the other thing i was wondering about was how if you sh'd a sex kcick out of the sheild, how would you be screwed just as badly, is it because you can jump away to safety or simply do another attack? or is it just because you don't fall impotently near your oppenent, which isn't changed on platformed/non-platformed levels.

"Avoid sheild grabbing with the upb!", umm... you have just of good of a chance stopping it with a neutral ground A as you do an upb, and i'd be willing to place my honor on that it comes out faster, and it has combo options!! dtilt, ftilt, or dsmash even are all good options.

anyway, last point, "sex kick no more useful than upb"?? How? there is no way since when you hit someone with a sex kick they fly away with more damage than the upb gives them, and if they recover quickly, you can actually do something after it, not just go up with minimal damage then fall back down, just waiting for a charged smash. if all else fails, do the sex kick, lay a bomb after it's done then run behind it and regroup. anyway you put it, there are always better options than upb.

[Testament]

Originally posted by Cap'n Crunch
Anyway, on to my nonsensical ramblings...... Testament, if my memory serves me correctly, and i'm sure everyone watching could back me up, i believe i won more of our matches that night.

I'll get to the rest of your post when I have time, but I'd just like to point out that you won 2 of the 6-7 matches. The two that you won were where I was using your friend's weird controller (I won the first, then lost the next two). Once I got my own controller, you lost the next 4-5 matches in a row; at the end saying something along the lines of "okay, this one's for the title". You lost that one too. Lunaris and I also beat you and your friend in teams. Twice. Granted Lunaris is better than I am...

[Aftermath]

umm... no johns about controllers, you weren't using my friend's i don't think, and you didn't actualy win that many. and as for the teams, i never played teams with him before tg^, but my regular team partner and i could probably beat you guys with ease.

[Testament]

I didn't actually win that many? So I was hallucinating for that specific portion of the night, yet I can remember my other wins and losses from California quite clearly? I was dreaming when, after you lost 2-3 rounds, you said "this one's for the title"? So my ever rampant imagination is responsible for my remembering the only reason our matches stopped were because other people wanted to play teams and I wanted to get some sleep? And how 'bout when you said "I think I did better against Wes"? Is that something I just pulled out of my ***? (For the record, I don't think I'm better than Wes; I openly admit that his Samus is more fluid than mine, and he has some tricks I hadn't thought of.) I imagine it has to be a bit crushing to lose to someone who has only really played against 2-3 people who play competitively and never been to a real tourney before (and a lowly G-FAQer at that!), but that's still no reason to try to rewrite what happened. Your elitist attitude does a marvelous job of proving what I hate about SWF; so hard headed and unwilling to accept new ideas unless they come from a top player. Oh well, be that way if you must; I suppose it can't be helped.

About that controller; it belonged to Ratking, if memory serves. It had a custom gold cover with his name written in the space above the Start button. The beastly thing felt a good deal heavier than a normal controller, and the stick was tighter than the one on my controller; but you're right, the fact that I didn't lose once when I got my controller out means nothing :) Anyways, I believe Ratking was also your partner for teams; and you and he had been playing a few team matches before our Samus dittos. Assuming you got in at least 3 rounds in teams, that'd total up to about as much team practice I'd gotten in with Lunaris in the few months prior to TG (small Smash community up here, not enough to play teams most of the time, and on the rare occasion that we do play teams, I usually partner up with someone else). But as with controllers; no johns when it comes to team partners, right? :)

Last bit before I'm gone; if you and your regular team partner could beat me and Lunaris "with ease"; your partner would have to be a fair deal better than yourself since you had problems with just li'l old me :)

[Tiller420]

i cancel with every char and even game & watches tender *** l cancel.

I love to crouch cancel then l-cancel

Saves me alot of lives and more dmg for them

[HugS]

I believe L cancel to up B is a very good move. Not too much on final D, but more so on platform levels. The fact is it is very useful against shield grabbers and can stop rushes in their tracks. I am not saying neutral air isn't useful, but upB adds to your unpredictability, and it does work.

[co_and_me]

such good irony.

[ABA_123]

thanks for the info, i really don't l-cancel, but i do hold down to cancel an counter. Hope i meet some of you guys a turneys.

[Dvul]

Just to throw my 2 cents into it all! I used to not L-cancle and i didnt think it matter to much but then i said screw it i'm trying it, and good god did it inprove my game 1,000 fold, i is def. well worth it to L-cancle!


Dvul Mother F.er of the Universe :chuckle:

[Aftermath]

I'm really unsure why you brought this thread back co_and_me. If you could explain some of that irony to me it'd be great.

[BIG. G]

the truth is.. if u dnt L-cancel u most likely suck.... so if u dnt u should start :laugh:

[Mic_128]

I think it's been established that L-canceling is not necessary, it does help quite a lot.