Psyching out Samus

[Neo-Dragoon]

I had a dreadful experience today as peach against a very basic samus player (no bombs/grapple to recover, no WD). He excelled at ranging the f-smash well along with abusing the great reach and priority of the sex and back kick. Toss in the usually projectile spam and the downsmash... and that was his game.


While it sounds simple, I got reamed because I felt like I was forced to be predictable. The missiles and charged shots were rarely a problem, and I usually only got hit by those out of stupidity... but getting past them usually put me in a predictable spot either floating (having just avoided landing on a projectile) or coming in on the ground since samus was airborn shortly.


I just udderly stumped on how to approach samus so as to hit her first, or make her miss so I can follow up. :(

[Shiri]

:beezo: A lot of people won't agree with me, but I find this to be a useful strategy. When approaching a projectile spamming Samus, you can jump over homing missiles, double jump over or air dodge through smash missiles, and wavedash in between projectiles. You can generally eat weak charge shots, but air dodge (PLEASE) through the bigger ones. If Samus tries to take advantage of your air dodge landing time, a spot dodge after you land should take care of anything that gets thrown at you. I recommend this stuff because Peach's tilts are (I find, at least) utterly despicable for cancelling projectiles. I find these methods to be more reliable, if not safer.

You'll end up reaching Samus a lot quicker than he or she may think if you do this. Once you're within Samus' f-smash range, feel free to either do a short-hop or floating DJC'd Toad. I know, I know...TOAD?! But I love the move, so I try to find uses for it. The spore range at this stage of the battle is decent enough to get Samus. If you short hopped Toad, you should be moving forward as well, so you'll get even more spores to make contact. The one thing you have to be careful with is that you have to be sure that Samus will attempt a projectile or an f-smash. If you're left hanging, you'll eat a smash missile, and then a charge shot on your way down.

You can also approach using floating nairs, but it's a tad more difficult, can make your landing awkward if you land at a range that gives Samus the advantage. Float cancelling gives you an advantage, but please remember not to play around too much with Peach's shield, because smash missiles and full charge shots eat it up. If you've landed just in front of Samus and you see Samus going for another missile, I believe you can do your dtilt and beat him or her to the punch while making Samus bait for any of your aerials.

Anyway, once you've landed your initial hit on Samus, whether it be with Toad or a nair or a dtilt, feel free to follow up with a floating dair into xyz combo or a double-a to dash attack or dash grab combo. Once you can get inside, you should have no problems. Be sure to short hop into a nair every now and then to avoid getting hit by any stray Samus dtilts. Also, be wary of utilt. Both leave you in the air for a dangerous amount of time. But yeah...you should be fine.

[Yuna]

Or you could Royal Slap (normal A attack on the ground) the missiles. And the bair eats through Samus' fully charged charge shot.

[RyokoYaksa]

Since when was a 14% attack capable of nullifying a 25% projectile? Try again.

[D'oH]

When I did it today?

[Mikey Lenetia]

Are you guys serious? You stopped a fully charged shot with bair? ._.;;;

[Shiri]

:beezo: This is why I believe Peach players are truly insane. All that power and beauty in one package can't be healthy! I did not know you can stop Samus' Charge Shot with bair, and I certainly wouldn't have tried. Just one more advantage to the lovely Princess, I suppose.

[Neo-Dragoon]

Yes, the b-air will stop a fully charged samus charged shot. I had a chance to test it, and it was actually fairly reliable to pull off. The catch is, a good samus player probably won't be shooting it at you in a spot you'll be able to react... but it's nice to know that a bair can stop it for trying to close in a samus that's charged up.


Anyway.... with a little help from a friend I think I found a few more options I was comfortable with before.

float cancelling into a ff'ed f-air can be pretty tough for a samus to comletely interupt with a ground move... and it's fairly easy to start the move up and drop on her while she may still be in missile fire lag. This becomes more situation the greater the skill of the samus player, however, because odds are they'll be missile cancelling a lot, so there won't really be much missile firing lag.

Hovering a little bit outside her reach in a float above ground missiles can offer a decent window as well. If samus fires a missile on the ground, you can float cancel on to her with just about anything because it gives you enough time to close in.

If she jump into an air shot, you should have enough reaction time to ff or even air dodge down to avoid missile/charged shot to the face. From there peach's speed can be enough to close in before samus can get another attack off. Close quarters with peach on the ground and samus in the air I definately favor peach on.

Samus lunging at you with a sex kick or, oddly, even the f-air is probably the most annoying counter for trying to come down on top of her. Unfortunately I'm still stumped on a good way to cope with this except for anticipating it. It's not too terribly hard to see coming, but being able to land a hit first or avoiding it and following up feels very clumsy, at least for me.

[Yuna]

HOW I PLAY SAMUS NOWADAYS:

* Jump over, crouch and dodge the missiles. Of if they're far enough away, Royal Slap them.
* If they abuse the sexkick, wavedash back once, twice or thrice and pull a turnip.
* Bair those charge shots, powershield them if you're good at it or just dodge/airdodge/shield them. They won't break your shield unless it's REALLY small already.
* Spam turnips, turtle, camp. Do unto others what they do unto you.
* When she's off stage, jump out (use your 2nd jump if needed, throw a turnip and then float into something. Since she'll probably he bombing, she won't be able to counterattack.
* Turnip spam CAN kill the Samus. Keep 'em coming.
* Never dsmash when she's got a fully charged charge shot.
* Float above missile range half the time if you wanna floatcancel.
* Dash around to confuse her and jumpcancel usmashes. People fall for jumpcancelled usmashes all the time. You can even be as bold as to try to sweetspot her when she's recovering with up + b.