Petition to Restore Zero Suit Samus

[Hussler]

I like 3.5 ZSS.

Put me down for 3.5.

 

[Yurya]

3.5 is best ZSS.

It may be only because of her new grab but I love how she plays now. Very fast, able to apply pressure and actually go for grabs to start combos.

Everyone got nerfed and ZSS got a big buff along with her nerfs. Characters across the board require more player input then just chaining nairs or dashing out of a Paralyzer. The game changed (for the better IMO) and ZSS followed zero suit.

 

[Yurya]

3.5 is best ZSS.

It may be only because of her new grab but I love how she plays now. Very fast, able to apply pressure and actually go for grabs to start combos.

Everyone got nerfed and ZSS got a big buff along with her nerfs. Characters across the board require more player input then just chaining nairs or dashing out of a Paralyzer. The game changed (for the better IMO) and ZSS followed zero suit.

 

[Legit]

3.5 is best ZSS.

It may be only because of her new grab but I love how she plays now. Very fast, able to apply pressure and actually go for grabs to start combos.

Everyone got nerfed and ZSS got a big buff along with her nerfs. Characters across the board require more player input then just chaining nairs or dashing out of a Paralyzer. The game changed (for the better IMO) and ZSS followed zero suit.

"Very fast" and "able to apply pressure" describe 3.02 ZSS MUCH better than they do 3.5 ZSS lol. It's more like she got a big nerf along with her buffs.... and a few more nerfs. I'm fine with those few nerfs.... but not with the big one

Edit: Actually I count her god awful throws as another big nerf but yeah.

 

[Hylian]

You guys should try using uthrow more. Also in regards to dthrow, tech chase throws on fast characters are *very* good.

 

[CzarYoshi]

You guys should try using uthrow more. Also in regards to dthrow, tech chase throws on fast characters are *very* good.

Uthrow isn't much better, unless they are at high %, characters act out (like simply jumping) out of the throw stun at the same time, if not like a few frames after, ZSS can do anything. The best thing we have after uthrow seems to be Up B, but again, when characters jump away as fast as ZSS can barely move out of the end lag of uthrow, Up B doesn't reach them. Jumping to uair them after an uthrow seems to be way too slow unless they somehow forget to DI down and away like they can from dthrow. For me, grabs are never worth it unless I throw them off stage. I think it's fast acting out of throw characters that have *very good* tech chases, characters already tech by the time we can move out of the end lag. I do want to see some ZSS 3.5 footage from a way better player than me so I can take some tips though, maybe I'm just too bad at ZSS to do anything with the throws.

 

[Player-3]

You guys should try using uthrow more. Also in regards to dthrow, tech chase throws on fast characters are *very* good.

idc about her throws i just hate how she got turned into bad falcon

 

[Shokio]

You guys should try using uthrow more. Also in regards to dthrow, tech chase throws on fast characters are *very* good.

Maybe we would if it didn't get +7 frames of endlag, sometimes allowing the opponent to get out of hitstun by the time ZSS is ready to follow up. Or maybe if it still had it's 93 degree angle to that it could be used as a DI mix-up for down throw like it did in 3.02. Down-and-away works for both throws now.

By the time she can move (+5 frames of endlag in 3.5), your opponent is already teching the ground from the down throw. The throw sends people as such a low and far angle that you have to be pixel and frame-perfect to get a decent follow-up, and the only good follow-up she has for tech chases is DSmash which comes out on frame 20.......I'm sure you get the point. You have to make the hardest reads of your LIFE to get something off of down throw. It's been turned into a tech throw, when it's not even ideal for tech chases.

ZSS getting a normal grab was supposed to be a buff, but the grab has been rendered useless by the combination of terrible angles and endlag, meaning that the new grab-game is a nerf overall when it wasn't supposed to be.

 

[DiamondDust]

I like this. You certainly have my signature for restoring her. The way she is now, she reminds me of a weaker Captain Falcon, which makes me a bit sad. Being able to cancel Paralyzer with a dash and her tether made ZSS unique to me. Not that I'm saying I hate the new grab, I just hate the followups (or lack thereof) I get off of them. To be honest, I'm not sure what the developers were thinking when they changed her this drastically, but she's lost some of the magic that made me want to play her in this game. I'll still main her, but if this petition helps get my girl back, that's great.

Just my .02.

 

[G13_Flux]

as much as it sucks having a grab game that you cant follow up from directly, i have to say its kind of warranted. when you compare to characters with similar speed and mobility, not a single one of them has the kind of disjointed combo starters that zero suit has. between side b, dsmash, and up b alone, her combo game is pretty damn good. when you add in other combo tools like dtilt, utilt, dair, uair, and nair, it adds up to quite the toolkit for comboing. characters like CF, shiek, fox, wolf, lucas, lucario, and many other fast paced characters have nowhere near that potential for combo starters outside of grabs, let alone ones that are disjointed. the only comparable ones are charaters like roy and marth (at least of ones with semi comparable speed), but they dont have access to a projectile, nor an insanely long and safe recovery.

since her combo game is extremely well developped with the tools ive already mentioned, this gives the dev team a new venue to try a character with a different grab dynamic. multiple devs have already stated that the throws are intended to be positional throws. a dthrow sets up for a tech chase, and up throw shoves them up into the air. with her speed, projectile, and disjoint, you can get pretty creative with tech chases. with her uair, nair, up b, and possible dive kick reads, you can make a great attempt to challenge their airspace after an upthrow.

since you have to choose between spacing side bs, dsmashes, and blaster shots for some of her safer and better set ups, versus going straight in for the grab to beat shielding for potential positional set ups, or even the more risky but rewarding dtilt approach, this gives you an interesting dynamic approach game that depends heavily on the MU. on top of all this, her dsmash beats crouch canceling. a SPACING move that can beat CCing straight up, with a relatively good safety. looks like the samus, peach, DK, zard, DDD, roy, and other infamous CCers will have to heavily consider this dynamic.

i totally understand the sentiments about her being unique in previous versions, and i can understand the annoyance at having a character like that so drastically altered, but coming strictly from a competitive POV, i think she is at no lack of tools in her kit to compete and be considered a great character among the cast. in addition, she still does retain a lot of unique attributes.

 

[Hylian]

Maybe we would if it didn't get +7 frames of endlag, sometimes allowing the opponent to get out of hitstun by the time ZSS is ready to follow up. Or maybe if it still had it's 93 degree angle to that it could be used as a DI mix-up for down throw like it did in 3.02. Down-and-away works for both throws now.

By the time she can move (+5 frames of endlag in 3.5), your opponent is already teching the ground from the down throw. The throw sends people as such a low and far angle that you have to be pixel and frame-perfect to get a decent follow-up, and the only good follow-up she has for tech chases is DSmash which comes out on frame 20.......I'm sure you get the point. You have to make the hardest reads of your LIFE to get something off of down throw. It's been turned into a tech throw, when it's not even ideal for tech chases.

ZSS getting a normal grab was supposed to be a buff, but the grab has been rendered useless by the combination of terrible angles and endlag, meaning that the new grab-game is a nerf overall when it wasn't supposed to be.

You can certainly be moving before they hit the ground, except certain %'s against fast fallers(who you can combo with uthrow anyways, and chaingrab too boot). If you think ZSS's only tech chase option is dsmash, then I would say you don't understand how tech chasing works very well. She can regrab, dtilt, jab, or dash attack. Her dsmash is hardly a tech chase option, it's just a read option if you know where they are going to tech roll. You can react with the other options and the video you posted is a perfect example of why dsmash is bad at tech chasing, you would have had free follow-ups on reaction if you had chose a more appropriate option. Dsmash is a much better tech chase option near the ledge I should not as well.

Her grab game went from high risk/high reward to low risk/low reward. Whether that is better or not is debatable. (I personally much prefer her tether grab/old throws).

 

[Shokio]

You can certainly be moving before they hit the ground, except certain %'s against fast fallers(who you can combo with uthrow anyways, and chaingrab too boot). If you think ZSS's only tech chase option is dsmash, then I would say you don't understand how tech chasing works very well. She can regrab, dtilt, jab, or dash attack. Her dsmash is hardly a tech chase option, it's just a read option if you know where they are going to tech roll. You can react with the other options and the video you posted is a perfect example of why dsmash is bad at tech chasing, you would have had free follow-ups on reaction if you had chose a more appropriate option. Dsmash is a much better tech chase option near the ledge I should not as well.

Her grab game went from high risk/high reward to low risk/low reward. Whether that is better or not is debatable. (I personally much prefer her tether grab/old throws).

I said down smash because you're not going to get very much out any of those moves you listed, outside of dtilt which will depend on percentage and fall speed. Re-grabbing is of course the go-to default option......for the other characters, because their throws are actually worth grabbing for. They can actually convert a grab into something devastating.

Yes, she can chain grab, but easily or efficiently? No. The grab is simply way too laggy and the throw is too easy to DI. When you can combo out of up-throw, it has to be a VERY specific percents.

I don't see why she can't get good combos out of her grabs like the rest of the roster can? Her grab is only low-risk COMPARED to her tether (and other tethers). Grabs in-general are risky and very punishable, yet I can down-throw Fair with Mario, up-throw up air with Fox, Down throw Fair with Olimar, down throw Bair with Ganon, down throw or back throw Wolf Flash with Wolf, so on and so forth......so why was that taken away from ZSS?

Her throws are booty-cheeks, let's be honest here =/

 

[kaizo13]

i'm gonna go with 3.5 zss. yeah 3.0 zss was pretty fun but looking at her overall design, she wasn't properly balanced. She could combo for days but couldn't kill or get a grab. Now those attributes are properly balanced. 3.5 zss is a better character overall.

The new throws and blaster are not as bad as you're making them seem. Spend some time in the lab before advocating change, especially on something that hasn't even been out for a week

..and whats this about her not being unique anymore? lol. What other character plays like 3.5 ZSS?? it literally took me 2-3 games to adapt to the new ZSS, her playstyle is very very similar.

 

[Legit]

i'm gonna go with 3.5 zss. yeah 3.0 zss was pretty fun but looking at her overall design, she wasn't properly balanced. She could combo for days but couldn't kill or get a grab. Now those attributes are properly balanced. 3.5 zss is a better character overall.

The new throws and blaster are not as bad as you're making them seem. Spend some time in the lab before advocating change, especially on something that hasn't even been out for a week

..and whats this about her not being unique anymore? lol. What other character plays like 3.5 ZSS?? it literally took me 2-3 games to adapt to the new ZSS, her playstyle is very very similar.

She is definitely not a better character overall. She has a new grab. Okay, but nearly everything else is worse.

The new throws and blaster are as bad as he's making them seem. Seriously, no followups out of throws, and a very weak blaster that puts 0 pressure on the opponent.

She is a weaker version of Falcon with a terrible projectile.

 

[DiamondDust]

i'm gonna go with 3.5 zss. yeah 3.0 zss was pretty fun but looking at her overall design, she wasn't properly balanced. She could combo for days but couldn't kill or get a grab. Now those attributes are properly balanced. 3.5 zss is a better character overall.

The new throws and blaster are not as bad as you're making them seem. Spend some time in the lab before advocating change, especially on something that hasn't even been out for a week

..and whats this about her not being unique anymore? lol. What other character plays like 3.5 ZSS?? it literally took me 2-3 games to adapt to the new ZSS, her playstyle is very very similar.

These are some good points, but I really don't feel she's unique anymore. She lost being able to cancel her Paralyzer with a dash, which makes follow ups harder (though not impossible) and she lost her tether grab. Yes, it was highly punishable, but it gave her a bit of utility that most characters don't have. The way she is now, she's like Captain Falcon light. I don't really even mind her new throw, but why are the followups from it so wonky? A lot of people have been saying lots of characters don't get followups off their throws, but ZSS did in prior versions. Why take that away?

And the same way you say we who don't like 3.5 ZSS haven't spent enough time with her, how can you say that you like her after only just a week?

 

[Shokio]

as much as it sucks having a grab game that you cant follow up from directly, i have to say its kind of warranted. when you compare to characters with similar speed and mobility, not a single one of them has the kind of disjointed combo starters that zero suit has. between side b, dsmash, and up b alone, her combo game is pretty damn good. when you add in other combo tools like dtilt, utilt, dair, uair, and nair, it adds up to quite the toolkit for comboing. characters like CF, shiek, fox, wolf, lucas, lucario, and many other fast paced characters have nowhere near that potential for combo starters outside of grabs, let alone ones that are disjointed. the only comparable ones are charaters like roy and marth (at least of ones with semi comparable speed), but they dont have access to a projectile, nor an insanely long and safe recovery.

since her combo game is extremely well developped with the tools ive already mentioned, this gives the dev team a new venue to try a character with a different grab dynamic. multiple devs have already stated that the throws are intended to be positional throws. a dthrow sets up for a tech chase, and up throw shoves them up into the air. with her speed, projectile, and disjoint, you can get pretty creative with tech chases. with her uair, nair, up b, and possible dive kick reads, you can make a great attempt to challenge their airspace after an upthrow.

since you have to choose between spacing side bs, dsmashes, and blaster shots for some of her safer and better set ups, versus going straight in for the grab to beat shielding for potential positional set ups, or even the more risky but rewarding dtilt approach, this gives you an interesting dynamic approach game that depends heavily on the MU. on top of all this, her dsmash beats crouch canceling. a SPACING move that can beat CCing straight up, with a relatively good safety. looks like the samus, peach, DK, zard, DDD, roy, and other infamous CCers will have to heavily consider this dynamic.

i totally understand the sentiments about her being unique in previous versions, and i can understand the annoyance at having a character like that so drastically altered, but coming strictly from a competitive POV, i think she is at no lack of tools in her kit to compete and be considered a great character among the cast. in addition, she still does retain a lot of unique attributes.

Side-B and Down Smash have a lot of start-up, and 99% of the time you manage to land those moves by your opponent running into them. They're definitely not instant moves you can just throw out there in the heat of battle and start a combo. You'd have a point with these if they were easy moves, but they really aren't.

Dtilt is good for combos, but is very punishable even on whiff and is EXTREMELY susceptible to CC. That move can get CC'd at like, 90%, no joke. Up-Tilt's good, yeah. Uair is a very weird move and most of the time, not ideal It's good for combos at low percents and only low percents. Hits people too far away to get a good follow-up at mid-high percents, unless they're the faster-falling fast-fallers (spacies, Falcon)

Up-B is not as easy/potent as it seems. It can actually be pretty hard to get the meteor hitbox of that move, you'll actually miss it the majority of the time. Not to mention that the hitboxes on that move have actually been reduced in 3.5, making it even harder.

Nair is a combo tool but has been pretty significantly weakened as such.

She may have more moves than [some of] the others chars in her speed class, but individually, they're all out-classed by a good ol' Falcon Dair into knee. It's about quality, not quantity.

Did you really list Lucas and Wolf as not having as good as combo potential? I'm sorry but LOL. Wolf is the juggle KING. This dude was literally designed FOR juggling:

Wolf has dtilt, shine, up-tilt, dash attack, up air, down air, sour-spot fair.....hell, he arguably has MORE combos tools than ZSS, AND his are more efficient.

So he's a character that is faster, has at least just as many if not more combos tools, and yet.........he can WOLF FLASH out of BOTH down-throw and back-throw. Hell, even forward-throw will work! So tell me again why she can't have her grab game restored?

As for Lucas, I don't have to explain this. 10-hit combos are literally the norm for any competent players of that character. And I can't believe you mentioned Lucario. JAB is combo starter for that man. What more do you need? And I know you mentioned that fact that she has disjoints but disjoint moves don't = better moves.

 

[TheNix]

I like 3.5 ZSS. While I do think that dashing out of lasers was fun, it's sensible to remove it given the change to her grab, and I think that change alone makes up for everything that she lost.

I suppose the ideal situation would be restoring the ability to dash out of lasers while still having the usable grab, but it would be difficult to have both without either breaking the character or ruining everything else.

 

[G13_Flux]

Side-B and Down Smash have a lot of start-up, and 99% of the time you manage to land those moves by your opponent running into them. They're definitely not instant moves you can just throw out there in the heat of battle and start a combo. You'd have a point with these if they were easy moves, but they really aren't.

Dtilt is good for combos, but is very punishable even on whiff and is EXTREMELY susceptible to CC. That move can get CC'd at like, 90%, no joke. Up-Tilt's good, yeah. Uair is a very weird move and most of the time, not ideal It's good for combos at low percents and only low percents. Hits people too far away to get a good follow-up at mid-high percents, unless they're the faster-falling fast-fallers (spacies, Falcon)

Up-B is not as easy/potent as it seems. It can actually be pretty hard to get the meteor hitbox of that move, you'll actually miss it the majority of the time. Not to mention that the hitboxes on that move have actually been reduced in 3.5, making it even harder.

Nair is a combo tool but has been pretty significantly weakened as such.

She may have more moves than [some of] the others chars in her speed class, but individually, they're all out-classed by a good ol' Falcon Dair into knee. It's about quality, not quantity.

Did you really list Lucas and Wolf as not having as good as combo potential? I'm sorry but LOL. Wolf is the juggle KING. This dude was literally designed FOR juggling:

Wolf has dtilt, shine, up-tilt, dash attack, up air, down air, sour-spot fair.....hell, he arguably has MORE combos tools than ZSS, AND his are more efficient.

So he's a character that is faster, has at least just as many if not more combos tools, and yet.........he can WOLF FLASH out of BOTH down-throw and back-throw. Hell, even forward-throw will work! So tell me again why she can't have her grab game restored?

As for Lucas, I don't have to explain this. 10-hit combos are literally the norm for any competent players of that character. And I can't believe you mentioned Lucario. JAB is combo starter for that man. What more do you need? And I know you mentioned that fact that she has disjoints but disjoint moves don't = better moves.

First off, don't misinterpret me. I never said Lucas and wolf don't have combo potential. All I said was that they don't have access to the kinds of disjoint combo starters that she has. If you want to pass off dsmash and side b as mediocre at best, then all the power to you, but they are both extremely valuable moves when used correctly, and should not be passed off as such, attributing their success to opponents "running into them."

Additionally, its true that her combo finishers are nothing like dair > knee or throws/dair >flash, but keep in mind that zerosuit has differentiating qualities from these two. She doesnt get comboed extremely hard as these two do, and she also has an amazing recovery, which they dont. Just because they have something doesnt mean she should have that something as well, since her game is designed around different premises. she has plenty of ways to kill as is. With lots of set ups into things like bair, fair, divekick and fmash, she has no problem finding a way to get a kill, although it takes maybe a bit more thought than dair to knee.

 

[Myst007_teh_newb]

I won't comment on whether or not ZSS is better in this iteration of PM, but I will say that she is much more balanced and less polarizing in 3.02. Her dash-cancelled blaster was probably one of the most polarizing moves in the game. The dash-cancel coupled with the projectile's intangibility meant that ZSS literally dominated neutral against every single character that did not have a projectile to stuff her rush down. It was a low-commitment, high reward move that didn't sacrifice any mobility, was difficult for the opponent to maneuver around, and forced a very limited "spam until hit-confirm and massively combo for punish" optimal playstyle. It was very good. Too good, in my opinion. No other character aside from Falco has such a powerful projectile to aid in the neutral game. And Falco has his own slew of problems. ZSS may have been rated mid tier, but I believe that her central neutral game was incredibly polarizing and left very little room for creativity for oppositional play.

Sure, it was fun, but think in terms of what the opponent experiences. They are pinned and cannot express their character defensively at all. Neutral was dominated by the blaster, so the best an opponent can do is exploit the startup frames and punish then. Otherwise, they relied on your mistakes in pressure to start playing their game. Nair was too easy to combo at all %s, so once in the combo, literally all DI could be reacted to for massive damage. Overall, it resulted in a very one-sided game. ZSS possesses the mobility to express herself in most to all matchups, but almost every other character is forced to play at her pace in matches.

3.5 gave her a much more healthy game, imo. She now has an incredibly dangerous dash dance game with the new grab. On top of that, her throws are less about starting combos and more about positional advantage. This makes neutral much more thoughtful and calculated than 3.02. Her combos are also more dynamic. uair is the move of choice for low % strings again, but the angle of nair is better for higher %s. Her projectile is used for what projectiles are supposed to be used for-- defensive zoning. In addition to the fact that she can now shieldgrab, it opens up a new dimension of play that she didn't have access to in 3.02-- a decent bait and punish game on shield. Up-b OoS was literally her only option in 3.02 and your opponent had to misspace something fierce if that was going to hit.

Love her or hate her, 3.5 ZSS is much more dynamic and interesting as a character. She may be worse or less fun for you, but she's much more fun and interesting for your opponent.

Think about 2.0 Sonic. He was fun. He was also incredibly frustrating for the opponent to play against. Should fun be the factor that keeps characters the same from patch to patch? No. It's all about balance. 3.02 ZSS was NOT fun to play against. Source: Everyone I play against. :3

Keep 3.5 ZSS as is. If you like 3.02, find someone and play 3.02.

 

[indyrenegade]

Zero Suit is the only Smash character I play, not just PM but all titles. Her gameplay is most appealing to me over the rest of the cast; she fits a niche for how I want to play a fighting game coming from a person that's never touched a fighter before.

I'm okay with the grab; it means mostly getting used to the space her tether used to take up between her and the opponent. I just have to deal with the limitation that everyone else had in comparison to her old tether. Knowing she can't really follow like she used to is lame, though. I was just getting used to linking combos through her grab -> throw, too

Put me down for 3.0. I don't think the petition will do much since the PMBR will do what it wants, but who knows.

 

[alphabattack]

I wonder what would happen if we let ZSS blaster land cancel. You could short hop fast fall the small projectile and still get a falco ish type of laser, but the regular blaster wouldn't be able to do that unless you full hopped which would be slightly telegraphed. So she'd still have a cancelable laser which allows for projectile walls, but her paralyzing effect would be a bit easier to dodge. She could still keep it safe by keeping her distance, but it wouldn't be too powerful of a tool.

 

[Erik Aldereguia]

@ Myst007_teh_newb
ehh. disagree. dcp was def not even close to one of the most polarizing moves in the game. the paralyzer had way too much startup to "spam until hitconfirm" as you say. in order to hit confirm you had to make a commitment that you were going to rush in beforehand. so it wasnt as low commitment high reward as you say. the hitstun wasnt even good enough that if you hit you could rush in on reaction anyway. it was imo high commitment, high reward. which imo, is what it should be. nothing was stopping your opponent from jumping and throwing out an aerial, which honestly, the disjoint on nair is NOT that great.
@ alphabattack
interesting idea, however i feel like that would resort to more camping. and that is not what zss is about. i suppose that is debatable though.

 

[Legit]

It was very good. Too good, in my opinion. No other character aside from Falco has such a powerful projectile to aid in the neutral game. And Falco has his own slew of problems. ZSS may have been rated mid tier, but I believe that her central neutral game was incredibly polarizing and left very little room for creativity for oppositional play.

What are you saying, that ZSS didn't have her own slew of problems? That Falco's broken lasers are okay because he does? If DCP was really that polarizing, and ZSS didn't have a large number of other problems, she would not have been rated mid tier, simple as that.

 

[Player-3]

land cancel blaster would essentially be the same thing as dash cancel with a different timing lol

 

[InfinityCollision]

Whether it was broken, polarizing, too good in a vacuum, whatever, isn't really the question that needs to be answered. Whether ZSS is good or bad now or then isn't even really part of the discussion.

The real question that everyone should be asking is: were the drastic changes to her playstyle really the best option for her, and for the game as a whole? Was homogenization genuinely necessary, and do the merits of that decision outweigh the drawbacks of a reduction in net variety/breadth for the cast?

Was such a significant design shift the right choice, or was there a better option that would have retained her playstyle with more subtle changes to her kit?

I don't think anyone really expects a 1:1 reversion to 3.02, potentially even on single moves. Framing the discussion in such terms is misleading and detrimental to all involved. There are also changes in 3.5 that are both subtle yet appropriate to the new environment, such as the changes to fair, usmash, dsmash, dair, flip kick, etc. Furthermore, these changes do not radically alter her playstyle. They are clearly fixes and/or balance changes and should not necessarily be considered as part of this discussion, hence my emphasis on seeking a restoration of playstyle in my earlier post.

 

[Shokio]

First off, don't misinterpret me. I never said Lucas and wolf don't have combo potential. All I said was that they don't have access to the kinds of disjoint combo starters that she has. If you want to pass off dsmash and side b as mediocre at best, then all the power to you, but they are both extremely valuable moves when used correctly, and should not be passed off as such, attributing their success to opponents "running into them."

Additionally, its true that her combo finishers are nothing like dair > knee or throws/dair >flash, but keep in mind that zerosuit has differentiating qualities from these two. She doesnt get comboed extremely hard as these two do, and she also has an amazing recovery, which they dont. Just because they have something doesnt mean she should have that something as well, since her game is designed around different premises. she has plenty of ways to kill as is. With lots of set ups into things like bair, fair, divekick and fmash, she has no problem finding a way to get a kill, although it takes maybe a bit more thought than dair to knee.

I didn't say you said that they don't have combo potential. I said you stated that they don't have AS MUCH as ZSS. And as I said, disjoints are not, doesn't matter. A disjointed attack doesn't mean it's a better combo tool than a non-disjointed one.

You're 2nd paragraph makes perfect sense, it's a good point, but your statement that she has plenty ways to kill I disagree with. One of ZSS's main weaknesses, from Brawl to now, is that she doesn't have many options to kill. She has the Marth syndrome. Once someone is at kill percent, you're pretty much fishing for a Bair at that point and only a Bair. Divekick is way too situation and unconventional to just throw out there to get a kill/ FSmash is too slow, too punishable and pretty much only ever used after a down-smash. I think we can all agree that Fair works best as a combo finisher. It's not ideal to just jump around throwing it out there like a Falcon knee, the move and ZSS weren't built for that. I mean, your statement is correct, technically she does have a good number of kill moves, all of them except Bair pretty much have to be combo'd into/set up for.

So shouldn't a character that has slow or situational moves be able to combo into them out of a grab? I find it so weird now that people were saying her throws were too good, when I saw NOBODY said anything about them in 3.02. You could totally DI out of her down throw if you DI'd down and away. Up throw was very easy to get out of if you DI'd behind her. The only way she got guaranteed follow-ups was when you got someone with a DI mix-up (since Up-Throw was a mix-up of Down-Throw, but it isn't anymore), in which case you deserve to start a combo or land the killing move.

 

[BILL?]

My opinion on 3.5 zss is still mixed. On one hand, we got a lot of things we thought we wanted, like a normal grab, a fixed Fair, a less junky upsmash, etc. I understand the changes. I agree with a lot of them, even the nerfs like Dair and flip jump. I understand that PDC + normal grab would potentially be too powerful and over centralize her neutral game. I get that she'd have chain grabs on lots of the cast if she had less laggy throws, and that this would be a problem. But somehow the result of these changes in my opinion, whatever that is worth, lost a very enjoyable play style that was worthwhile both in casual and competitive play. I don't know what change it was that did it, but she doesn't "feel" like what we had come to know as "ZSS" in 3.02

I realize that her old play style may have somehow been incompatible with the PMBR's vision for the game, but if it isn't like that then maybe something can be done to form a more interesting intermediate.
There's a lot of characters that can flowchart tech chase > aerial combo > finisher/edgeguard. There was only one character that played like 3.02 ZSS, and a lot of that changed IMO.

 

[G13_Flux]

I didn't say you said that they don't have combo potential. I said you stated that they don't have AS MUCH as ZSS. And as I said, disjoints are not, doesn't matter. A disjointed attack doesn't mean it's a better combo tool than a non-disjointed one.

You're 2nd paragraph makes perfect sense, it's a good point, but your statement that she has plenty ways to kill I disagree with. One of ZSS's main weaknesses, from Brawl to now, is that she doesn't have many options to kill. She has the Marth syndrome. Once someone is at kill percent, you're pretty much fishing for a Bair at that point and only a Bair. Divekick is way too situation and unconventional to just throw out there to get a kill/ FSmash is too slow, too punishable and pretty much only ever used after a down-smash. I think we can all agree that Fair works best as a combo finisher. It's not ideal to just jump around throwing it out there like a Falcon knee, the move and ZSS weren't built for that. I mean, your statement is correct, technically she does have a good number of kill moves, all of them except Bair pretty much have to be combo'd into/set up for.

So shouldn't a character that has slow or situational moves be able to combo into them out of a grab? I find it so weird now that people were saying her throws were too good, when I saw NOBODY said anything about them in 3.02. You could totally DI out of her down throw if you DI'd down and away. Up throw was very easy to get out of if you DI'd behind her. The only way she got guaranteed follow-ups was when you got someone with a DI mix-up (since Up-Throw was a mix-up of Down-Throw, but it isn't anymore), in which case you deserve to start a combo or land the killing move.

in some MUs, a disjointed combo starter means A LOT. the cast of characters is extremely varied, and in many cases, characters may have trouble punishing things like side b and dsmash, making there spacing abilities very valuable. if youre facing fox, will it work? probably not. but not everyone is fox and not everyone can come up with a quick, safe aerial approach on the spot. am i saying that her disjointed combo starters make her the best character in the game? no. in fact i think that wolf and lucas are firmly up there in top tier ahead of ZSS. but nonetheless, in the scope of the entire cast, ZSSs disjoints serve as an important tool, that many cant safely punished, when she uses them properly. like i said, if you want to think theyre bad moves, then you can think whatever you want about them.

i also do understand also that you have to work for kills, and theyre not terribly easy. thats why i said its takes a bit more thought than a simple dair > knee. but nonethless, the kill potential is still there, and its not impossible to get. and i think her case is also a bit better than marths in this situation. with her great mobility, if she had direct kill set ups out of grab, she would literally have a kill move stemming from every option she can dish out in neutral, which is a bit excessive. if you get a grab, you can use proper reads and beefy aerial attacks like uair and nair to challenge airspace, and get your set up.

my suitemate and I today were having a conversation about zero suit. when you look at her tools an attribute, honestly she doesnt have any glaring weaknesses. if anything, i would agree that her biggest weakness is how easily she can set up into her killers (although as ive said, its certainly not impossible or overly difficult, just requires finesse), since her combos arent simply things like throw > kill. but what other weakness does she have besides that? she doesnt get combod terribly hard, she doesnt have a sub par recovery, she is at no lack of range on her moves, she doesnt have slow mobility, she doesnt have poor defensive skills now. what other weakness does she have besides the slightly more challenging task of setting up a kill? every character has to have their weakness.

this all being said, i dont want to sign the petition because ZSS isnt my main and im not as attatched to the character as some of you probably are. if the pmdt is willing to listen to some of your pleas, and they can make the character work, then im fine with that. but looking at the current character, i think she has all the tools she needs to compete and be a good character.

 

[Foo]

Flux, I think there is one key thing you are overlooking. Every other character that has similar combo games to ZSS can confirm kills out of bread and butter combos.

Here is a list of characters that can do so in character order (haven't played every character since 3.5, so some may be changed)

Wario, Mario, Peach, yoshi, dk, diddy, falcon, wolf, fox, falco, shiek, LINK, toon link(?), ganon, lucario, ivy, charizard, lucas, pit, kirby, metaknight, ike, marth, roy, rob, game and watch, sonic.

THIS is what made ZSS combo game justified. She had a stellar combo game, one of the best ones in the game, but they served purely as damage racking, unless your opponent SDIs INTO fair at specific %s off stage. THAT'S what made her completely balanced. You could rack damage well, but then you had to hit a raw kill move.

I'm not saying she was perfectly balanced and didn't need tweaks. I'm also not saying she's a bad character now, like most people seem to think. The main point is that these massive changes were not needed, and were bad for the character as a whole. Would her blaster be a little silly in 3.5? Probably, let's delay the cancel by a few frames to make shield a strong option against it. Is her nair too good at comboing compared to the rest of the cast? Probably, let's change the trajectory a little to reduce it's effectiveness, and reduce the range too.

However, what they did is completely remove blaster cancel, half the BKB on her nair and give her a new grab with awful throws.

The other changes were absolutely fine in both directions, but these changes should have been tweaks instead of reworks, as none of these moves were unfixable (like shine, lol).

Last patch, she was a character with blazing strenghts and glaring weaknesses.

Pros:
Insane mobility
Great projectile
sick combo game
good range
great recovery

Cons
Worst grab in game
no kill combos
NO out of shield options and poor defense in general
powerful moves tend to be VERY slow and/or laggy.
semi-dangerous shield pressure (entirely read/frame trap dependant)

And that was almost PERFECT. With the changes, it looks more like this.

Pros:
Fast
can combo
good range
good recovery

Cons:
Bad throws
mediocre out of shield options
useless projectile
mediocre approach options

It's just... bland now.

The more I think about it, I realize that fair, grab and upsmash SHOULD suck if fit with 3.0 playstyle, because those options being useless give leeway for her to have other insane pros. Having a good fair makes her nair broken, having a good grab makes blaster broken, having a good upsmash makes her juggle broken, etc.

I've always been drawn to characters with very defined pros and cons. For instance, in league my favorite characters are Anivia. If you don't know, Anivia has ludicrous base damage, a busted passive, great scaling and insane utility. Like Zero Suit, if you looked at those aspects alone in comparison to other characters on paper, she'd be incredibly OP. However, she has huge mana limitations, no mobility, and gets destroyed by disruption. Anivia is infamous for being the least changed champion in league. She went for 3 seasons without a single balance update. Since then, she has received two small buffs due to the power creep.
This is the sort of dynamic 3.0 ZSS had. It's very difficult to strike a balance like this, but ZSS in 3.0 very nearly managed it. Other good examples of this would be my other favorite characters, falcon and roy (noticing a pattern? lol) Falcon has insane speed, insane combos, great throws, easy time killing, and has low lag. However, he also has a trash recovery, no projectile or anti projectile, has no defensive options, is combo food, and a trash recovery. Roy has a similar layout.

I think it is a great thing to have characters that are, in and of themselves, polarized. Not around a single move mind you, but around a single idea. I think axing that for ZSS is very very sad...

 

[alphabattack]

I feel like I'm in the minority here, and especially since I just switched to zss, it may not mean much, but I really like her throws. I have mained Falco in melee for the past forever, so maybe it's that that gives me a skewed view of throws, but even still his uthrow is great. Anyways I really like her throws, and I use them a lot. Especially when near a platform since they set up so well for dair tech chases or uair tech chases.

 

[G13_Flux]

Foo, ive already admitted that if she has any weakness, its getting an easy kill out of a combo. however, she has a mix of powerful attributes that very few of the characters you mentioned have. in time, the mix of those attributes may prove to balance out her relative difficulty in landing the killing blow.

all im trying to do is keep an open mind to the PMDTs choices. is it a bit disappointing to see very unique attributes be tossed from the game? sure it is. but keep in mind theyve had a lot more testing of this than we have, and in the scope of the other characters, ZSS may have what she needs to compete well, and thats the perspective im trying to offer.

at the moment, i feel that everyone is entirely focused on the perceived negatives, in particular, her grabs. the game has only been out for about 5-6 days now, how much do you really think you can learn about all the MUs the game has to offer in that time? some, but not all. if in the future, the PMDT listens to your whims and decides to bring back a toned down version of 3.02 ZSS, then thats great, and ill be glad for you guys, and ill be glad to play one of the more unique characters again; however, its not going to happen by expressing all your initial disappointment of the changes at face value. i encourage you all to give it some more time and actively try to keep an open mind, and constructively figure out what the best way is to utilize this new ZSS. thats the only way that flaws in her design are going to be exposed. i have faith in the PMDT, and i highly doubt that they would include a character that was intended to be boring, plain, and has nothing special to offer the rest of the cast in terms of MU diversity. then again, they arent perfect. so if you really want to convince them, youre going to have to give 3.5 ZSS a serious shot first, like im trying to do now.

 

[Shokio]

After waiting to play her in a tourney environment, I have come to the conclusion that one of these 3 factors are the reason why ZSS has been murdered, or any combination of the 3:

1) Oro?! stole all of the Dev Teams' girlfriends at one point in time, so they destroyed his charactrr in salty retaliation.

2) The Dev Team decided that they needed a Dan or Pichu of Project M, so they decided to make that character ZSS.

3) ZSS is actually black and 3.5 is set in the Jim Crow days. Thus, she doesnt have acess to things that literally the rest of the roster has.

Personally, I think it may be #1. What ddo you guys think?

 

[ph00tbag]

Except Oro!? is pretty heavily involved in ZSS's development.

Edit: Maybe he stole his own girlfriend.

 

[Foo]

Edit: Maybe he stole his own girlfriend.

He'd never see it coming.

 

[Shokio]

Precisely my friends.

 

[CrypticJav]

After waiting to play her in a tourney environment, I have come to the conclusion that one of these 3 factors are the reason why ZSS has been murdered, or any combination of the 3:

1) Oro?! stole all of the Dev Teams' girlfriends at one point in time, so they destroyed his charactrr in salty retaliation.

2) The Dev Team decided that they needed a Dan or Pichu of Project M, so they decided to make that character ZSS.

3) ZSS is actually black and 3.5 is set in the Jim Crow days. Thus, she doesnt have acess to things that literally the rest of the roster has.

Personally, I think it may be #1. What ddo you guys think?

Or it could just be that they held Oro?! hostage in a room and fed him frame data until he went crazy. At this point, they had full control over him. They then filmed him agreeing to the ZSS changes. But little did we know, he was promised real food if he consented. And now they could do whatever they wanted with her.

She was a pawn in the palm of their hands.

So they came up with practical (or so they thought) ideas to nerf her under the radar. Since ZSS is so far down the tier list for some reason, anyone who loses to one will feel a little salty. So the Dev Team had all these bent up feelings towards her for all the years of beatdowns from Oro?!. I think it went something like this.

"Okay so this is the first triannual meeting to nerf ZSS. Any and all nerf suggestions will be taken into consideration. Does anybody want to start?"

"Um I have a hard time catching her when she hits me with a paralyzer."

"Great! We'll just take the dash cancel out of her paralyzer. Any other ideas?"

"Her nair hurts."

"Okay...hmmmm. We can make it so that ZSS players can only do 1 or 2 in a row if they're good."

"What does her up throw do again?"

"Great idea! We'll make it near impossible to follow up on any of her throws! Alright that's enough for today. Tomorrow we will talk about her tether grab (or lack thereof amirite hehe) and her down air combo potential."

So that's pretty much the 4th option to what happened. I believe it was a combination between 1 and 4.

 

[gmBottles]

This is stupid. 3.5 ZSS is still good, just different.

 

[Foo]

This is stupid. 3.5 ZSS is still good, just different.

It's yet to be seem whether she's a good character or not, but she's certainly different, and that's what most people hate. She was so cool last patch, and now, nope.

 

[gmBottles]

It's yet to be seem whether she's a good character or not, but she's certainly different, and that's what most people hate. She was so cool last patch, and now, nope.

Most of my friends that I've talked with about the new ZSS love her. We've decided she's so good that it's gonna be like 20XX but instead it'll be 20ZeroZero. We're calling it Y2K. A lot of people in the two biggest scenes near me think she'll be high tier at least.

 

[Foo]

Most of my friends that I've talked with about the new ZSS love her. We've decided she's so good that it's gonna be like 20XX but instead it'll be 20ZeroZero. We're calling it Y2K. A lot of people in the two biggest scenes near me think she'll be high tier at least.

How many of those people played ZSS before 3.5? The thing is, 3.0 zss was a character that you had to LEARN. You didn't just apply your fundamentals and play her like any other speedster. In 3.5, she doesn't take much figuring out, she's pretty straightfoward. Naturally, this is going to those new to ZSS like her more.