ZSS Matchup Spread

[Foo]

So, I thought it'd be cool to get everyone on the zss boards to get talking on matchups on a more specific level, and come up with some numbers. Here is my personal matchup chart that I threw together hastily. Of course, as has been discussed zss has awful matchups with spacies and struggles with swords, but if someone wants me to explain any matchup on here, I'll do it. This list will be updated (especially the ? matchups) purely based on my current opinion. However, the second list will be updated based on everyone's opinion.

Key:
!= A matchup I have played a lot and am familiar with
?= A matchup that I have very little experience in, and is mostly theory crafted
For the others, I have played the matchup at least a few time against good players, and more times against not so good players and understand the character reasonably well.



Constantly Updating ZSS Matchup chart based on responses and my opinions:

-5

-4
-3

-2

-1

-.5

0

+.5

+1

+2

+3

 

[G13_Flux]

you forgot zelda lol, which I personally think is advantageous by a little bit, since zeldas biggest weakness is her slow mobility, which ZSS can take advantage of. not only that, but when you couple the fact that zelda has really poor combo break options for a floaty character, and the fact that getting back down to the ground is tough (despite her better air dodge that she shares with only peach), i think it totals up to ZSS commanding space far better. combos out of dthrow are guaranteed until about 70 because of her lighter weight. zelda also has relatively slow options in neutral. her fastest moves are frame 4 and 5 (dsmash and ditlt), but both are very short ranged and not particularly rewarding unless at the ledge. she has a few low commitement, disjointed defensive moves like jab, a SH neutral b, and up b, but mostly everything that gets her a reward takes commitment (ftilt, grab, up smash, dash attack). ZSS overall commands both ground space and air space FAR better, and although zelda has an easier time killing, ZSSs combos work pretty well on her and are pretty effective even at setting up an edge guard (zeldas recovery has great range but is tough to use and is pretty telegraphed and laggy). id say +1 or 2.

 

[Foo]

Ah, I remember doing that one, but I guess I forgot to put it in. I wrote out each character in alphabetical order first, then arranged them by number.

I thought it was a toss up between 0 or +.5. From my experience, zelda's combo break options are MORE than enough. ZSS combos at the perfect angle for her to get lightning kicked if she miscalculate's hitstun by a few frames. Since zelda is so floaty, it makes her dangerous to combo. Also, teleport is a very strong for getting to the ground. As long as you TP directly on to the ground, there is almost no lag. Also, Zelda in general has very low amounts of lag, really hurting zss' bait and punish game. Also, the recovery isn't that easy to edgeguard because there are so many places in which it can land, she can react to where you are standing, and the hitbox is pretty big AND she can sweetspot from basically anywhere. Normall, you'd just space bair, but getting read and lightning kicked out of it can be death at VERY low %s.

I'd probably say it's +.5 just because zss outspeeds her by so goddamn much and she has very poor answers to side b. The matchup plays out in a very awkward way in my experience against several zelda players. First, you have to bait out an option, wait no, I can't punish that one, so I have to feign attempting to punish and... BOOM there we go, I can punish that neutral b. However, if you get a lengthy enough stage you can spam blaster from a distance if she doesn't know how to powershield consistently, and then side-b her if she tries to neutral b. If she tries to jump over them, she's in a real bad spot.

After thinking about it a little more, I play the matchup too aggresively, so I'd say it's a toss up between +1 and +.5

 

[Legit]

I personally don't think swordies are that bad. We have a lot more mobility than them (except maybe ike) and they are easy to combo. It's not terribly difficult to keep them away with lolparalyzer, side b and our superior mobility.

Falcon on the other hand, is a *****. ZSS's main strength is our mobility, but Falcon actually has us beat in this department. Hell, he has us beat in pretty much ALL departments, save the fact we have more range, but it doesn't help much when he can get to us from anywhere on any map with a single shorthop. You're never far enough away from this asshole.

I play a local ROB a ton in my region (ViRu5) and I have to say its slightly in ROBs favor. In 3.02 we had the advantage by far, but this patch hurt way more than it should have. We can't really zone him out anymore and he can gimp us much more successfully. He also isn't easy to edgeguard and will live until 140-150% every stock being a heavyweight.

I'd say falcon is -3 or maybe even -4 (I find him almost or as hard as falco) and I'd put swordies at -1, -2 at worst. ROB -1. I generally agree with the rest of the character's placements. I've come around to acknowledging the fact that fox is definitely her hardest MU (Shine offstage = GG).

 

[Stryker]

Falcon on the other hand, is a *****. ZSS's main strength is our mobility, but Falcon actually has us beat in this department. Hell, he has us beat in pretty much ALL departments, save the fact we have more range, but it doesn't help much when he can get to us from anywhere on any map with a single shorthop. You're never far enough away from this *******.

Falcon is basically the harder, better, faster, stronger version of ZSS.
Zss can't just throw you into fair and expect you to hit the blast zone unless youre already offstage. CF? He will take that upthrow from the middle of PS2 and knee your face so hard that your teeth hit the blast zone before you do.

I mean, I've always just said that shiek is kind of a brainless falcon. Mostly because everything combo's into fair, just like falcon, but at least falcon needs to sweetspot his kill move. So, by that logic, ZSS is just a really really terrible shiek.
In relation to matchups, I think ZSS has terrible matchups vs pretty much all the Melee characters due to having poor tools and all the melee characters having exactly what they need.
Edit: Also, I think that both Fox and Falco are -5, so long as the players are of the same calibur.

 

[TimeSmash]

Zelda isn't too bad but also isn't too easy--just be patient because if you leave yourself open for punishment you'll be punished and it will hurt. Because it's new, people always forget the recall Din's; watch out for that because even though it does little damage it serves as a combo extender and a way to get a small amount of hitstun on you, which Zelda can use to escape a combo or capitalize for a hit.

I'm interested in what people have to say for the Kirby MU, something I have little experience in

 

[InfinityCollision]

Can we get some actual ratios on this? It's still pretty arbitrary, but it's a significant step less arbitrary than calling the Fox matchup -5 or having half-value increments (what does that even represent?).

 

[Foo]

I had it at ratio's at first, but I decided against it because... idk. It didn't feel right.

.5= 45:55
1= 40:60
2= 35:65
3= 30:70
4= 75:15
5= 80:20

However, these numbers really don't feel right to me. Honestly, the ratio is almost as arbitrary. Maybe once this gets much more refined, I'd feel comfortable being more specific, but basically it came down to this. It's a scale where +3 is as easy as +3 is hard.

-5 Switch to secondary
-4 You should really switch to your secondary unless you outplay hard
-3 Really tough
-2 Tough
-1 Fairly tough
-.5 very slight disadvantage
0 Even
+.5 very slight advantage
+1 Fairly easy
+2 Easy
+3 Really easy

I personally don't think swordies are that bad. We have a lot more mobility than them (except maybe ike) and they are easy to combo. It's not terribly difficult to keep them away with lolparalyzer, side b and our superior mobility.

Falcon on the other hand, is a *****. ZSS's main strength is our mobility, but Falcon actually has us beat in this department. Hell, he has us beat in pretty much ALL departments, save the fact we have more range, but it doesn't help much when he can get to us from anywhere on any map with a single shorthop. You're never far enough away from this *******.

I play a local ROB a ton in my region (ViRu5) and I have to say its slightly in ROBs favor. In 3.02 we had the advantage by far, but this patch hurt way more than it should have. We can't really zone him out anymore and he can gimp us much more successfully. He also isn't easy to edgeguard and will live until 140-150% every stock being a heavyweight.

I'd say falcon is -3 or maybe even -4 (I find him almost or as hard as falco) and I'd put swordies at -1, -2 at worst. ROB -1. I generally agree with the rest of the character's placements. I've come around to acknowledging the fact that fox is definitely her hardest MU (Shine offstage = GG).

I'll take roy and ike down a peg if you say so, because I am not as convinced with them, but marth has to stay. He can just completely space you out, and you cannot hit side-b on a good marth. I thought that was the matchup's saving grace, but playing good marth's made me realize I was wrong. As it turns out, side-b is the "please tipper fsmash me" button unless you wavebounce, but it misses when you do. Also, marth has SUPER good edgeguard vs zss. Marth can bair you on reaction to fade back, and can ledgedash fsmash you when you go forward. It's pretty brutal. Worst part is the stages you like are the stages marth will wreck you on. You have to take him to stages that aren't very good for zss. He is the only character in the game where spacing bair is risky (other than maybe roy?) and crossing up his shield is just begging for death. This matchup feels so bad. He's even not easy to gimp since side-b beats out dive-kick, so unless you get a read or he has to side-b for recovery, you just have to predict his up-b timing to ledgeguard.

I'm open to being proven wrong, but marth just feels awful for zss. Nair and DC blaster made her swordies matchups good, but now those are both wrong. I'm keeping marth at -3 unless more ZSS players explain why zss can deal with marth, but I can see roy and ike being moved down.

Falcon is basically the harder, better, faster, stronger version of ZSS.
Zss can't just throw you into fair and expect you to hit the blast zone unless youre already offstage. CF? He will take that upthrow from the middle of PS2 and knee your face so hard that your teeth hit the blast zone before you do.

I mean, I've always just said that shiek is kind of a brainless falcon. Mostly because everything combo's into fair, just like falcon, but at least falcon needs to sweetspot his kill move. So, by that logic, ZSS is just a really really terrible shiek.
In relation to matchups, I think ZSS has terrible matchups vs pretty much all the Melee characters due to having poor tools and all the melee characters having exactly what they need.
Edit: Also, I think that both Fox and Falco are -5, so long as the players are of the same calibur.

From my experience, zss is light enough to escape upthrow knee before kill %s with some good DI, but dthrow is knee. The main thing that you have over falcon is really easy tech chases and really easy gimps. He wrecks you at everything else, but one good read can lead to stock pretty often. Against the worse matchups, it doesn't feel like you have a good comeback mechanic.

As for sheik, thinking about it more I was biased by previous thoughts that sheik wasn't too bad because played some bad sheiks in 3.02. I'll put her at -3

As for falco, it's the same as fox, but you can gimp him and outspeed him. imo, zss deals with lasers much better than most and you can actually survive low % spikes.

Zelda isn't too bad but also isn't too easy--just be patient because if you leave yourself open for punishment you'll be punished and it will hurt. Because it's new, people always forget the recall Din's; watch out for that because even though it does little damage it serves as a combo extender and a way to get a small amount of hitstun on you, which Zelda can use to escape a combo or capitalize for a hit.

I'm interested in what people have to say for the Kirby MU, something I have little experience in

For zelda matchup, pretty much.

As for kirby... omg. This matchup is dumb. It's not spacies, but if there were kirby's near me, I would get a secondary for kirby because this matchup is so ****ing stupid. Kirby has solid grounded options, unlike jiggles, and kirby's crouch BEATS EVERYTHING. When he crouches, you can hit kirby with

Dsmash
Spaced side-b
Falling aerials
Dtilt
Dftilt
Divekick

That's it. Because everything but side-b, dsmash and bair are the only viable answers to crouch cancel, but they are all really telegraphed. Also, kirby's fair will beat out all your aerials. Kirby gimps zss really really easily as well, but zss basically cannot gimp kirby. ZSS's bad oos options also let kirby do basically whatever he wants to your shield. Good luck comboing him. Maybe it's not as bad as I think since I haven't played good kirby's and I am not sure how effective just dash dancing would be, but it feels awful when I play against bad kirby's. People who don't even play kirby will switch to him and do better against me lol.


Could anyone with experience give some insight on squirtle, ike and/or snake? I'd love to have somewhere to put them.

 

[Myst007_teh_newb]

Squirtle is awkward, but close to even, I would say. ZSS has to play super precise against Squirtle because he's so small. Turn-around and side-b tuck him down low enough to where blaster can't hit. So your blaster has essentially no on-stage use in the matchup. However, ZSS can also outrun Squirtle's side-b, which means that you can just run away and space a bair. His techroll is the worst in the game and is easily capitalized upon on reaction. He doesn't have a good move to cover the space in front of him (Fair is tiny, weak, and easily CCable), so you can scoop his aerial approaches with your anti-air options very easily (utilt and sh uair). Meaning that Squirtle has to play the very awkward game of trying to catch ZSS whose mobility allows her to be super evasive around squirtle. At the same time, getting the hit on squirtle feels like swatting a fly. You gotta get the spacing down super close and swat him out of something with either a bair or a nair-- or stuff his aggressive approaches. You can cc a lot of his stuff and hopefully can get a dtilt off. Squritle is incredibly easy to combo and his offstage recovery is super susceptible to ledge-refreshed invincible reverse uair from ledge, making gimps easy money. Still, you can't use blaster on him and he's really small. He's got the gimps to make your life a nightmare, but if you're creative enough with your edge guards, it should be okay. It's very close to even. ZSS has to play awkwardly, but so does Squritle. It's ugly, but it's equally ugly for both sides.

Ike is also close to even. Ike has very few options to get things started in neutral if ZSS plays keep away, but has the lingering disjoints in order to stuff a lot of things if ZSS is being too reckless (utilt being the primary offender). His quick draw game is alright, but ZSS can crawl under Ike's standing grab range and can CC his other neutral game options like late nair and jab. Hit confirms come really easy off of CC dtilt and utilt works wonders because Ike's OoS game is such poop that he has to either grab or do some defensive option like rolling. Gimps on Ike are a little more involved, but it should be doable. Refreshing invincibility on ledge in order to get through his Aether's upswing is very important and, if you can get around this portion of the move, you can do a falling uair off ledge to catch him and gimp him. His combo game on you is very good, since he just has amazing conversions off of throws. If you're above him, Ike has an easy time intercepting people with his uair. You gotta be creative with your down-b ledge-cancelled divekicks if you want to get away from this. Mix up your horizontal momentum and make sure you have the platforms to do your business on. Ike's sword is so long that sometimes his combos are inescapable. You'll find yourself eating tipped fairs more often than you'd expect, especially offstage. Ideally Ike has a good punish on ZSS from ledge since he has bair to destroy fadeaway tether grabs, but keep your recovery offensive and try to swat him away from the ledge with uair. Most of the neutral game is playing around fullstage until Ike comes in. When he comes in, close the distance to super-awkwardly close quarters and crawl into him, lol. He can't do anything about that and you can get a quick dtilt. If he wises up and shields, just crawl back and space your dtilt to his the tip of his shield. Because she low-profiles the grab, he can't punish you. It's really funny. Dair on shield is also super free since his fastest option is nair OoS for punish. If you aren't sleeping, you can react and get out of there. Don't let him grab you.

Snake is ZSS's advantage. He has all of the projectiles and crazy **** to keep a lot of characters boxed out, but ZSS has the freedom of movement to get around a lot of it without much difficulty. You can also use side-b to clear dsmashes, which is always cute to land in match. But basically Snake thrives off of his OoS game. It's one of the strongest in the cast. The thing, though, is that spacing bair and bouncing dair on shield means that Snake can't punish you OoS. You can also crawl under his grabs, which gives you the nice dtilt hit confirm that will mess Snake up. Obviously watch out for up-b OoS, but you have the spacing options such that that option shouldn't really be hitting you in intelligent and relevant neutral game exchanges. Snake also can't approach, so you're going to be spending most of the game approaching him, which is fine. It's pretty safe. Once you get your combo going, it's smooth sailing. Snake is an excellent combo weight for ZSS. Bounce him off the different zones of your nair and fair him offstage. ZSS has the ability to gimp snake way better than most of the cast. Just divekick into his cypher and the hitboxes will trade. Repeat as needed until he does the C4 recovery and intercept him out of that. Best case scenario you kill him; worst case scenario he lives with an additional ~50%. Then just spam well-spaced bairs. What can he do about it? Don't get grabbed or else you're gonna get stuck. Be wary of being on a platform directly above him because he can cypher stick you. The matchup is definitely in ZSS's favor for a lot of the reasons that the Marth/Snake matchup is in Marth's favor. ZSS can safely poke at Snake for free outside of his danger zone.

ZSS/Lucario is also in ZSS's favor very slightly. Lucario can touch of death ZSS just like he can with any other character, but ZSS's neutral is so evasive that it's difficult for Lucario to land that down-b utilt against her. You gotta dance around until Lucario blows the aura. Once you do, then safely poke and chip away at him. Watch out, though, because his dtilt has extra hitstun on it because it's a grounded meteor. So if you go in a dtilt him, you're goona get CC dtilt and comboed. Stick to the safer things like well spaced bairs, cross up nairs into utilt shield pressure, and bouncing dairs. Also mix in side b and see if you can get hit confirms off of blaster. ZSS has the ability to slowly and painfully zero-to-death Lucario once his aura is burned if you play the neutral correctly. However, if you mess up once, he's got his aura and he can destroy you from anywhere. Don't be too aggressive throwing out high commitment options because Lucario can react and punish those like crazy. Keep it safe. Keep it simple. And you should be able to deal with Lucario.

I'm a very neutral game heavy player, so that's the lens through which I view these matchups. ZSS has an excellent neutral and can outpace all of these characters, so I give her an advantage in all of these matchups.

Unrelated, but I think that ZSS only loses badly to spacies. Her gimp game on Falcon evens the matchup significantly. You can also CC his nair approach. And I'm not really sure why everyone thinks swordies are such a problem. Maybe they're disadvantageous, but I don't see any of her matchups worse than 55:45 other than spacies, personally. She can just run around like a little ***** and hit confirm into huge combos after you bait your opponent into a whiff.

 

[Foo]

Squirtle is awkward, but close to even, I would say. ZSS has to play super precise against Squirtle because he's so small. Turn-around and side-b tuck him down low enough to where blaster can't hit. So your blaster has essentially no on-stage use in the matchup. However, ZSS can also outrun Squirtle's side-b, which means that you can just run away and space a bair. His techroll is the worst in the game and is easily capitalized upon on reaction. He doesn't have a good move to cover the space in front of him (Fair is tiny, weak, and easily CCable), so you can scoop his aerial approaches with your anti-air options very easily (utilt and sh uair). Meaning that Squirtle has to play the very awkward game of trying to catch ZSS whose mobility allows her to be super evasive around squirtle. At the same time, getting the hit on squirtle feels like swatting a fly. You gotta get the spacing down super close and swat him out of something with either a bair or a nair-- or stuff his aggressive approaches. You can cc a lot of his stuff and hopefully can get a dtilt off. Squritle is incredibly easy to combo and his offstage recovery is super susceptible to ledge-refreshed invincible reverse uair from ledge, making gimps easy money. Still, you can't use blaster on him and he's really small. He's got the gimps to make your life a nightmare, but if you're creative enough with your edge guards, it should be okay. It's very close to even. ZSS has to play awkwardly, but so does Squritle. It's ugly, but it's equally ugly for both sides.

Seems legit enough.

Ike is also close to even. Ike has very few options to get things started in neutral if ZSS plays keep away, but has the lingering disjoints in order to stuff a lot of things if ZSS is being too reckless (utilt being the primary offender). His quick draw game is alright, but ZSS can crawl under Ike's standing grab range and can CC his other neutral game options like late nair and jab. Hit confirms come really easy off of CC dtilt and utilt works wonders because Ike's OoS game is such poop that he has to either grab or do some defensive option like rolling. Gimps on Ike are a little more involved, but it should be doable. Refreshing invincibility on ledge in order to get through his Aether's upswing is very important and, if you can get around this portion of the move, you can do a falling uair off ledge to catch him and gimp him. His combo game on you is very good, since he just has amazing conversions off of throws. If you're above him, Ike has an easy time intercepting people with his uair. You gotta be creative with your down-b ledge-cancelled divekicks if you want to get away from this. Mix up your horizontal momentum and make sure you have the platforms to do your business on. Ike's sword is so long that sometimes his combos are inescapable. You'll find yourself eating tipped fairs more often than you'd expect, especially offstage. Ideally Ike has a good punish on ZSS from ledge since he has bair to destroy fadeaway tether grabs, but keep your recovery offensive and try to swat him away from the ledge with uair. Most of the neutral game is playing around fullstage until Ike comes in. When he comes in, close the distance to super-awkwardly close quarters and crawl into him, lol. He can't do anything about that and you can get a quick dtilt. If he wises up and shields, just crawl back and space your dtilt to his the tip of his shield. Because she low-profiles the grab, he can't punish you. It's really funny. Dair on shield is also super free since his fastest option is nair OoS for punish. If you aren't sleeping, you can react and get out of there. Don't let him grab you.

The plethora of quick draw tricks and other really good approaches do not make it hard to get things started. He probably has an easier time getting things started than just about everyone but spacies. Mostly because you CAN'T crawl under ike's standing grab unless you are literally pushing him with crawl. That means about 90% of his grab range works just fine when he grabs. Also, if you are crawling under him he can just dair oos. Also, no zss does not CC all his neutral options. Grab always beats cc, and qd attack will break cc around 25-30%. Of course, cc is always a really bad option against spaced fair. As for the rest, it really doesn't sound like an even matchup.

Snake is ZSS's advantage. He has all of the projectiles and crazy **** to keep a lot of characters boxed out, but ZSS has the freedom of movement to get around a lot of it without much difficulty. You can also use side-b to clear dsmashes, which is always cute to land in match. But basically Snake thrives off of his OoS game. It's one of the strongest in the cast. The thing, though, is that spacing bair and bouncing dair on shield means that Snake can't punish you OoS. You can also crawl under his grabs, which gives you the nice dtilt hit confirm that will mess Snake up. Obviously watch out for up-b OoS, but you have the spacing options such that that option shouldn't really be hitting you in intelligent and relevant neutral game exchanges. Snake also can't approach, so you're going to be spending most of the game approaching him, which is fine. It's pretty safe. Once you get your combo going, it's smooth sailing. Snake is an excellent combo weight for ZSS. Bounce him off the different zones of your nair and fair him offstage. ZSS has the ability to gimp snake way better than most of the cast. Just divekick into his cypher and the hitboxes will trade. Repeat as needed until he does the C4 recovery and intercept him out of that. Best case scenario you kill him; worst case scenario he lives with an additional ~50%. Then just spam well-spaced bairs. What can he do about it? Don't get grabbed or else you're gonna get stuck. Be wary of being on a platform directly above him because he can cypher stick you. The matchup is definitely in ZSS's favor for a lot of the reasons that the Marth/Snake matchup is in Marth's favor. ZSS can safely poke at Snake for free outside of his danger zone.

While zss can crawl under a larger portion of snake's grab, she still can't crawl under all of it. However, you can also use stuff like dsmash to clear mines more easily than side and I can't really think of what snake could do against spaced bairs. Maybe nair would beat it? Does sound like zss favor either way though.

ZSS/Lucario is also in ZSS's favor very slightly. Lucario can touch of death ZSS just like he can with any other character, but ZSS's neutral is so evasive that it's difficult for Lucario to land that down-b utilt against her. You gotta dance around until Lucario blows the aura. Once you do, then safely poke and chip away at him. Watch out, though, because his dtilt has extra hitstun on it because it's a grounded meteor. So if you go in a dtilt him, you're goona get CC dtilt and comboed. Stick to the safer things like well spaced bairs, cross up nairs into utilt shield pressure, and bouncing dairs. Also mix in side b and see if you can get hit confirms off of blaster. ZSS has the ability to slowly and painfully zero-to-death Lucario once his aura is burned if you play the neutral correctly. However, if you mess up once, he's got his aura and he can destroy you from anywhere. Don't be too aggressive throwing out high commitment options because Lucario can react and punish those like crazy. Keep it safe. Keep it simple. And you should be able to deal with Lucario.

Not sure I buy this matchup being in zss favor if your neutral strat is to just bait and punish with nothing nothing but bairs against a character that touch of deaths you. Side b also seems REALLY bad since he can just down-b past it on reaction since the inner hitbox is frame 24 and the outer is frame 30. I'll put it at even for the time being.

Unrelated, but I think that ZSS only loses badly to spacies. Her gimp game on Falcon evens the matchup significantly. You can also CC his nair approach. And I'm not really sure why everyone thinks swordies are such a problem. Maybe they're disadvantageous, but I don't see any of her matchups worse than 55:45 other than spacies, personally. She can just run around like a little ***** and hit confirm into huge combos after you bait your opponent into a whiff.

How do you expect to do that against moves with 7 frames of lag? If swordies whiff a yolo fsmash, sure, but fair and dtilt are almost impossible to punish and you can't space bair against swordies. It's also really hard to run around them since they cover the space above them insanely well and have really long range, fast, and fairly lagless moves. Let's not forget that their hitboxes aren't attacked to their hurtboxes either.

 

[Vixen]

I disagree with most of Foo's list.

ZSS beats the fire emblem characters. ZSS has a better match ups vs Fox than she does vs Wolf. Both Oro?! and I agree Wolf is her worst Spacie match up. I'd also put Falcon as a harder match up than Fox or Falco. Falcon has more damaging combos that are easier and more consistent. ZSS also has marth syndrome in that after a certain percent killing falcon is down to getting a randy hard hit in neutral.

Peach is actually a bad match up. Play someone as good as Light or Silly Kyle and you'll agree with me. I have vids for reference if necessary. That match up is hard.

Link is kinda neutral. Maybe even zss favor slight. Puff is definitely ZSS favor.

Ness and Squirtle need to be in the bad match up list too as of 3.5, or Ness around +0. Lucas is also around +0/-0.5 I have neon and pink fresh experience. the match up is close to even.

wario is like one of zss's best match ups.

shiek is a hard match up but not -3. -1 or -1.5 at worse. she's a good combo weight and zss has options for edgeguarding.

 

[ted dorosheff]

ive been having some trouble with zelda lately.. Everyone was saying that she is really easy for zss, but im not thinking so. Zeldas neutral b has such a persistent hitbox, and her side b limits my approaches, and since 3.5, the way the side b returns to zelda adds another angle to her attack.

If you guys could recommend some strats for facing zelda, i would appreciate it.

 

[Vixen]

Zelda is superfree for ZSS.

Neutral B has a lot of endlag, so punish that, rather than challenging it.
Side B does return, but at a predictable arc. The arc CAN be manipulated, but not usually enough for it to cause a problem more than once or twice, provided you're good enough to react and adapt.

Zelda lacks any ability to make things happen. You're faster, with a better moveset. She has butt recovery, you have all the tools necessary to cover and punish pretty much anything she tries to do.

Also if you have a problem with side b, do what I do and dair the side b. it's hilarious. c:

 

[Myst007_teh_newb]

I disagree with most of Foo's list.

ZSS beats the fire emblem characters. ZSS has a better match ups vs Fox than she does vs Wolf. Both Oro?! and I agree Wolf is her worst Spacie match up. I'd also put Falcon as a harder match up than Fox or Falco. Falcon has more damaging combos that are easier and more consistent. ZSS also has marth syndrome in that after a certain percent killing falcon is down to getting a randy hard hit in neutral.

Peach is actually a bad match up. Play someone as good as Light or Silly Kyle and you'll agree with me. I have vids for reference if necessary. That match up is hard.

Link is kinda neutral. Maybe even zss favor slight. Puff is definitely ZSS favor.

Ness and Squirtle need to be in the bad match up list too as of 3.5, or Ness around +0. Lucas is also around +0/-0.5 I have neon and pink fresh experience. the match up is close to even.

wario is like one of zss's best match ups.

shiek is a hard match up but not -3. -1 or -1.5 at worse. she's a good combo weight and zss has options for edgeguarding.

Could you elaborate on the following statements:

- ZSS beats FE characters.
- ZSS loses harder to Wolf than she loses to Fox.
- Wario is one of ZSS's best matchups.

In particular, I am firmly convinced that Fox is ZSS's worst matchup after playing many Wolfs and Foxes in socal. Granted, the Foxes that I've played are of higher caliber (Lucky, K9, Larry, Westballz, etc), but ZSS has options to get around Wolf's neutral game in ways that she can't get around Fox's. By crawling under lasers, fairing through lasers, using platforms to get around Wolf's inferior mobility, etc. But she simply cannot outmaneuver Fox. She has few answers to a dash dancing Fox and many of the things that make Wolf a tough matchup are also true of the Fox matchup. Maybe Fox has an easier recovery to edge guard, but aside from that, I don't see how Wolf is significantly harder for ZSS than Fox.

 

[Vixen]

Wolf is infinitely more difficult to kill than fox. His recovery is much quicker and side b is ac

Could you elaborate on the following statements:

- ZSS beats FE characters.
- ZSS loses harder to Wolf than she loses to Fox.
- Wario is one of ZSS's best matchups.

In particular, I am firmly convinced that Fox is ZSS's worst matchup after playing many Wolfs and Foxes in socal. Granted, the Foxes that I've played are of higher caliber (Lucky, K9, Larry, Westballz, etc), but ZSS has options to get around Wolf's neutral game in ways that she can't get around Fox's. By crawling under lasers, fairing through lasers, using platforms to get around Wolf's inferior mobility, etc. But she simply cannot outmaneuver Fox. She has few answers to a dash dancing Fox and many of the things that make Wolf a tough matchup are also true of the Fox matchup. Maybe Fox has an easier recovery to edge guard, but aside from that, I don't see how Wolf is significantly harder for ZSS than Fox.

Wolf is:

A. Harder to kill. Specifically, vs a good wolf edgeguarding is nearly impossible. You can't go out there like you can vs fox/falco, and his forward B is actually a threat.

B. Wolf is more threatening in neutral. Dash attack, dacus, yolo fsmash, and his buffed lasers are far more threatening than anything Fox can do.

C. Wolf has more, and earlier guaranteed KO set ups/combos than Fox. Fox's shine knocks you down, and with good DI he cannot uthrow > uair you. Fox has to work harder to get stocks than wolf. Wolf even edgeguards ZSS better. ZSS being a tether character has a difficult time meteor cancelling when recovering.

D. Semi bias - Character familiarity. Fox is largely unchanged. I've played melee competitively for 10 years, and at a high level since 2009. I feel infinitely more comfortable vs top level foxes than I do vs Wolf.

FE characters:

All three of them are the perfect weight for ZSS to combo, their recoveries are especially easy to edgeguard, and they lack super punishing combos on ZSS while ZSS can pretty much take their stock in 1~3 solid combos. You're faster, have more options, and if anything ZSS has dat PM jank that the FE characters lack.

Wario is a pretty easy match up for ZSS. His weight and fall speed lend to some seriously high damaging combos and reliable KO set ups. His recovery is jank, and ZSS can get out of most of his stuff relatively unharmed. If you don't believe me, Strongbad has been losing consistently to Oro?! since ZSS was added to the game. I've also never lost to a Wario as ZSS.

As for player caliber, I regularly play with high level players. Remember, k9 was AZ before he was Cali. I also have plenty of exxperience vs out of state since I travel and am a long-time veteran of both games, and we have players like Oksas (best wolf) SS (best oli) Axe (Best Pika, solid Falco/Marth), Medz (super solid Fox) Sanchaz (super solid Fox and Falcon) GG7 (legendary super solid but semi-retired Falcon) Heyseuss (super good DDD) and plenty of generally solid players. Just because you live in a better overall region doesn't necessarily mean you're more of an authority on ZSS's match ups than I am.

 

[Myst007_teh_newb]

Wolf is infinitely more difficult to kill than fox. His recovery is much quicker and side b is ac


Wolf is:

A. Harder to kill. Specifically, vs a good wolf edgeguarding is nearly impossible. You can't go out there like you can vs fox/falco, and his forward B is actually a threat.

B. Wolf is more threatening in neutral. Dash attack, dacus, yolo fsmash, and his buffed lasers are far more threatening than anything Fox can do.

C. Wolf has more, and earlier guaranteed KO set ups/combos than Fox. Fox's shine knocks you down, and with good DI he cannot uthrow > uair you. Fox has to work harder to get stocks than wolf. Wolf even edgeguards ZSS better. ZSS being a tether character has a difficult time meteor cancelling when recovering.

D. Semi bias - Character familiarity. Fox is largely unchanged. I've played melee competitively for 10 years, and at a high level since 2009. I feel infinitely more comfortable vs top level foxes than I do vs Wolf.

FE characters:

All three of them are the perfect weight for ZSS to combo, their recoveries are especially easy to edgeguard, and they lack super punishing combos on ZSS while ZSS can pretty much take their stock in 1~3 solid combos. You're faster, have more options, and if anything ZSS has dat PM jank that the FE characters lack.

Wario is a pretty easy match up for ZSS. His weight and fall speed lend to some seriously high damaging combos and reliable KO set ups. His recovery is jank, and ZSS can get out of most of his stuff relatively unharmed. If you don't believe me, Strongbad has been losing consistently to Oro?! since ZSS was added to the game. I've also never lost to a Wario as ZSS.

As for player caliber, I regularly play with high level players. Remember, k9 was AZ before he was Cali. I also have plenty of exxperience vs out of state since I travel and am a long-time veteran of both games, and we have players like Oksas (best wolf) SS (best oli) Axe (Best Pika, solid Falco/Marth), Medz (super solid Fox) Sanchaz (super solid Fox and Falcon) GG7 (legendary super solid but semi-retired Falcon) Heyseuss (super good DDD) and plenty of generally solid players. Just because you live in a better overall region doesn't necessarily mean you're more of an authority on ZSS's match ups than I am.

Fox has his Fox things that I think are still very solid against ZSS. He has nair to invade your space. He has bair to wall you out of the stage. He has dash dance grab. And his upsmash is killer. I've always found one of ZSS's weaknesses in her lack of a lingering hitbox. Those types of moves really even the scales in the Fox matchup and without them, Fox can just nairplane ZSS without fear of running into anything really. Wolf can theoretically do the same thing, but he's not as fast as Fox, so relies on his blaster to threaten space. I would stick to my guns in saying that Fox's neutral is much tougher than Wolf's. DACUS and yolo fsmash don't really have a place in neutral. They can mix up people and catch them off guard, but that's like saying that ZSS's side-b makes the neutral unnavigable for wolf. It really doesn't. Most of what I see in neutral from Wolf is waveland blasters waiting for a hit confirm into something. That or cross-up nairs and generic spacie shine pressure. I think that the crux of the neutral hinges on whether you think that Fox's speed and hard-hitting, lingering hitboxes are more of a threat than Wolf's projectile. And I believe that is the case. Wolf's projectile is pretty easily telegraphed, so I find either powershielding it, stuffing it, or crawling under it to be fairly reliable. Also the fact that Wolf is locked into 10 frames of waveland lag means that the move is more punishable than one would initially think. Very often I catch Wolf wavelanding towards me and I crawl under the laser and dtilt him. Wolf has to play much closer to ZSS than Fox does, so I think that there are more opportunities to get things started as opposed to being out dashdanced by Fox. Wolf is easier to catch from my experiences.

Agree with FE characters for the most part, though I wouldn't exaggerate the advantage.

Dunno about Wario. We have a very good Wario down here in socal and he has an incredibly deep punish game. ZSS can't really get out of most of his stuff "relatively unharmed". Command grab is a 50-50 DI mixup that will end in death if he has his waft. Disrespect his pressure and you're going to eat a side-b-- something that is tougher for ZSS to get around because of her lack of a lingering hitbox. If he gets a grab, he gets guaranteed punished off of uthrow and you'll find yourself dying to uair more often than you'd think. On small stages, Wario is incredibly scary. I've been killed by command grab -> waft at absurdly low %s-- sub 40%. And the animation for the bite is so fast that it essentially a 50-50 that is very difficult to react to. ZSS has good punishes, too. She can edge guard him easy. She can run away and use space better than he can. But Wario's punish game is unreal if used properly. I know Strong Bad loses to Oro, but I think that Wario is far closer to even for ZSS than not. It's certainly not a cakewalk like you make it sound like. Stage dependent, perhaps. But Wario has plenty of stages where he is very threatening to ZSS. Also, Wario has an absurdly easy time edge guarding ZSS. Lingering nairs are the death of her. Combined with Wario's crazy air momentum, you have to always be on your toes.

Also, premature shots much. I was saying that the Foxes I play are of higher caliber than the Wolfs I play, so I may have a Fox bias because I don't play many high level Wolfs. I don't claim to be an authority on ZSS or anything. Just talking about video games, yo. You don't have to bust out your resume on me, lol.

 

[Vixen]

I think Wario has to work a lot harder than ZSS to get anything started. Wario also gets punished harder out of most situations with little to no prediction required on ZSS's side. Wario has a lot of strong coinflips, ZSS has a lot of strong guaranteed ****. ZSS is the clear winner.

Fox vs Wolf is comes down to: Fox has to work harder than Wolf in every aspect. Fox's combos are less threatening, his approach is less threatening, his ability to kill and edgeguard are less threatening, and he's significantly easier to edgeguard and gimp than Wolf. Fox IS still a bad match up, I never said it wasn't. I'm trying to argue that it's significantly LESS of a bad match up than you give it credit for, whilst Wolf is MUCH more difficult. I'd say roughly tied with Falcon for "ZSS's worst match up," with Falco being third.

ZSS's lack of lingering hitboxes is a large reason why Wolf is her worst match up.

 

[Player-3]

wario has to work harder than everybody but he punishes suuuuper hard when he gets something


its not that bad but def zss favor

 

[Foo]

I disagree with most of Foo's list.

ZSS beats the fire emblem characters. ZSS has a better match ups vs Fox than she does vs Wolf. Both Oro?! and I agree Wolf is her worst Spacie match up. I'd also put Falcon as a harder match up than Fox or Falco. Falcon has more damaging combos that are easier and more consistent. ZSS also has marth syndrome in that after a certain percent killing falcon is down to getting a randy hard hit in neutral.

Peach is actually a bad match up. Play someone as good as Light or Silly Kyle and you'll agree with me. I have vids for reference if necessary. That match up is hard.

Link is kinda neutral. Maybe even zss favor slight. Puff is definitely ZSS favor.

Ness and Squirtle need to be in the bad match up list too as of 3.5, or Ness around +0. Lucas is also around +0/-0.5 I have neon and pink fresh experience. the match up is close to even.

wario is like one of zss's best match ups.

shiek is a hard match up but not -3. -1 or -1.5 at worse. she's a good combo weight and zss has options for edgeguarding.

Why is puff zss favor? Puff does space bair better, zss can't combo puff and has much more trouble killing puff than most.

I have played a good peach, the best player in my region, in fact, and I brought him to last stock game 3. Matchup felt slight zss advantage because peach had bad answers to spaced bair, was good combo food, zss is really good at keeping peach above her, and peach basically cannot edgeguard zss. You just have to catch all of her turnips with wavedash or agt which is surprisingly easy.

Why is sheik not bad? Sheik wins neutral, edgeguards better, and gets more punish. Sheik is a somewhat good combo weight, but getting her off the ground is really hard.

I can see link being neutral. Played the matchup recently and it felt even.

As for wolf, no. Fox is much harder. The main problem with fox, is that you can't stuff his approaches with bair without being PERFECT and reading him. Against wolf, you can deal with his lasers and space out his nair with your bair and his recovery is MUCH worse than fox. You can go out against wolf too, you just have to do it right away. Wolf's up-b is much easier to beat out, edgehog, and it actually has LAG, same with side-b. Divedick also beats out wolf's options, unlike firefox. You probably feel more comfortable against fox because you've played against him so much, but are less familiar with wolf.


As for FE, they are not the perfect combo weight. Roy is a good combo weight, ike is a good combo weight, and marth is an OK combo weight. I can see her doing better against roy and ike than I gave her credit for, but not marth. I really disagree that you have more options, while you are faster you have fewer options and they outspace and outprioritize everything. Main problem with marth is that his oos is so good against zss, he's not the best combo weight, and he edgeguards zss for completely free. He can ledgehop bair kill your fadeback on reaction, or ledgedash anything against fade forward on reaction. Roy and ike can't though, so I'll move them down.

I've updated the list a bit. We need @ Shokio 's two cents now.

 

[Player-3]

puff is zss favor because you can kill her with uair at like 70 lol

 

[Foo]

puff is zss favor because you can kill her with uair at like 70 lol

If that were any near the truth, then sure. However, upair doesn't kill puff anywhere near that early. 70% is when fox upair starts killing puff...

 

[Vixen]

idk only time I played a puff was Hbox and I 3 stocked him.

As for Peach I play with Silly Kyle. For the uninformed, Silly Kyle is a peach who is, in melee, quite arguably the best, and undisputed top 3 in north america. I'd be willing to argue that his results when he IS able to leave state should put him at #2. In PM, he's easily the best Peach followed by Light. In Melee, I trade sets with Silly Kyle. In PM, I struggle to take a game off Peach with ZSS.

Sure, you can combo Peach, but you can't reliably kill her. We lost dash cancel, and her new throw doesn't yield super big punishes. Kills are difficult to get, and Peach isn't a character that can be reliably edgeguarded or Gimped. On Peaches side, ZSS is combo food for days. ZSS is a very similar combo weight as Shiek, and I'm sure everyone has seen the sicknasty things Armada has done to just about every shiek main in existance. I say this, because SK is basically Armada if he were flamboyantly gay and had en ego the size of Saturn. Peach gets huge punishes on ZSS, edgeguards her with ease, especially in 3.5, and has reliable kill set ups. Peach can put on the pressure with FC aerials. Fair is infinitely safe on shield, and Peaches throws are gdlk.

FE characters are just kinda.... easy. I play Melee. Do the math. Their weight is perfect. Marth falls in to uair strings, nair strings, all of her launchers can be followed up with something solid. Marth is Marth which means he's a cakewalk to edgeguard. **** you can ftilt him at like 120 and he just dies depending on the stage.

Roy is a midweight fastfaller meaning you get SUPER combos on him. It's hilarious.

Ike is to PM as Falcon is to Melee - the character you make a combo video out of. His recovery is butt, too.

Foo, but me and Oro say Wolf is harder. We're easily two of the best ZSS's and we play with the best wolf players in the nation. I think you should rethink your stance.

shiek feels even, tbqh. very stage-dependent. Probably melee experience talking. PM shiek feels easier and less threatening to me as a character.

 

[Player-3]

Peach zss is hard af in 3.5 no clue about wolf though

She beats the FE guys though lol

 

[ph00tbag]

In 3.02, ZSS could space out Peach's ground game while being able to punish Peach outright just for pressing jump. But since ZSS lost DC paralyzer and tether grab, a lot of that spacing game definitely seems more limited. Turnips are more of a threat, forcing ZSS to play closer in order to keep Peach from pulling them, which limits the places she can avoid dash attack, and increases the likelihood she gets caught by a stray dsmash. ZSS still beats Peach in the air, but Peach's ground threats mean ZSS has to work harder to force Peach to jump when she doesn't want to.

In this light, I can see how Peach could be a bad match-up for ZSS, although I imagine it's closer to even. ZSS has to play it a bit like Marth does: it's not about getting the kill. It's about not getting killed.

 

[Foo]

idk only time I played a puff was Hbox and I 3 stocked him.

As for Peach I play with Silly Kyle. For the uninformed, Silly Kyle is a peach who is, in melee, quite arguably the best, and undisputed top 3 in north america. I'd be willing to argue that his results when he IS able to leave state should put him at #2. In PM, he's easily the best Peach followed by Light. In Melee, I trade sets with Silly Kyle. In PM, I struggle to take a game off Peach with ZSS.

Sure, you can combo Peach, but you can't reliably kill her. We lost dash cancel, and her new throw doesn't yield super big punishes. Kills are difficult to get, and Peach isn't a character that can be reliably edgeguarded or Gimped. On Peaches side, ZSS is combo food for days. ZSS is a very similar combo weight as Shiek, and I'm sure everyone has seen the sicknasty things Armada has done to just about every shiek main in existance. I say this, because SK is basically Armada if he were flamboyantly gay and had en ego the size of Saturn. Peach gets huge punishes on ZSS, edgeguards her with ease, especially in 3.5, and has reliable kill set ups. Peach can put on the pressure with FC aerials. Fair is infinitely safe on shield, and Peaches throws are gdlk.

FE characters are just kinda.... easy. I play Melee. Do the math. Their weight is perfect. Marth falls in to uair strings, nair strings, all of her launchers can be followed up with something solid. Marth is Marth which means he's a cakewalk to edgeguard. **** you can ftilt him at like 120 and he just dies depending on the stage.

Roy is a midweight fastfaller meaning you get SUPER combos on him. It's hilarious.

Ike is to PM as Falcon is to Melee - the character you make a combo video out of. His recovery is butt, too.

Foo, but me and Oro say Wolf is harder. We're easily two of the best ZSS's and we play with the best wolf players in the nation. I think you should rethink your stance.

shiek feels even, tbqh. very stage-dependent. Probably melee experience talking. PM shiek feels easier and less threatening to me as a character.

I really just don't get your ideas for them having "perfect" weight. They are all pretty different. Marth is a mid/light weight semifloaty. Roy is a lightweight semi-fast faller, and ike is a heavyweight semifloaty. If they are all the "perfect comb weight" for zss, then just about half the cast is. Marth and sheik have similar combo weights, and it's a weight I've found awkward to combo since they seem a little bit too light and floaty for upair strings (and can often hit you out of it), but fall a little bit to fast for nair strings. They aren't BAD combo weights by any means, but they aren't great combo weights. (In terms of comboing, I think ike is easier than roy is easier than marth.)

Also, you can edgeguard marth easily, but marth can edgeguard you for FREE, on reaction.

As for peach... I still just don't see it. Since multiple of you seem to think so, I'll put it at -1, but when I played the matchup it felt pretty easy. I felt like if I wasn't being out thought and out executed so hard, I would have won and they were close sets. I also cannot fathom how beach is easily edgeguarding zss. Just aerial glide toss with the turnips, it's pretty easy. If she holds ledge, she can't get good punishes on your tether hop because her double jump is so slow. Also, just catch the damn turnips. It's SO easy with zss.

As for wolf, if you guys insist, I'll put him at -5 as well. However, please don't make a point that you are right just by asserting that you are better than me or have more experience. If that is the case, it should show by you making good points for why the matchup is worse. I weigh opinions based on the points made, not based on who says them. (That's why I'm ignoring player-3 for the most part. If you want to contribute, please make points rather than baseless assertions)

 

[Vixen]

Zss lost to peach in 3.02 too. I have multiple vids vs silly kyle to prove this.

Also foo its not just player caliber. I made a lot of points you seem to gloss over.

 

[Myst007_teh_newb]

Just to weigh in on the Peach matchup, I think that it's not that bad. I don't know what you mean by ZSS not having kill setups. Nair -> fair can be done at relevant %s and dair -> bair is super free on floaties like Peach. Sure, her typical combo starters in the form of dtilt and utilt don't connect at the %s that you want, but ZSS's combo game is so flexible that her other options begin to work. You can bully her with your multiple jumps and get uair kills off the top really quick, tooo, so your utilt at ~100% will lead into a situation where Peach has to get down from above and ZSS is the killer shark waiting at the bottom.

Float cancelling is godlike, but ZSS shouldn't really be in her shield in this matchup. You're so fast and she's so slow. When she's floating, jump on her stupid head. Her dair chain is super free at low %s (You can get 3 simply on reaction at 0% I'm pretty sure) and combos into bair, fair, or uair depending on how they squeeze out of it. You threaten a lot of vertical and horizontal space as ZSS against a character like Peach. Turnips cut off some space, but just navigate the platforms to get the drop in on her. The fact that you have your down-b jump and the up-b meteor mean that Peach can't be sleeping when she's recovering high.

Dunno much about the peach punish game, but I can assure you that ZSS's combo game on peach does convert into kills. And she can slowly push and bully peach out of her recovery with the space she threatens with down-b dj uair and up-b. And you're fast! Some of the negatives about ZSS you list are defensive negatives. And if you're fast enough to run circles around peach as she slowly tries to wall you out with fc fairs, then why would you let her keep you in shield instead of jumping over her, running to the platforms, or dash dance baiting stuff?

My two cents, same caveats as before, etc. (Don't bite my head off, Vixen)

 

[Vixen]

Just to weigh in on the Peach matchup, I think that it's not that bad. I don't know what you mean by ZSS not having kill setups. Nair -> fair can be done at relevant %s and dair -> bair is super free on floaties like Peach. Sure, her typical combo starters in the form of dtilt and utilt don't connect at the %s that you want, but ZSS's combo game is so flexible that her other options begin to work. You can bully her with your multiple jumps and get uair kills off the top really quick, tooo, so your utilt at ~100% will lead into a situation where Peach has to get down from above and ZSS is the killer shark waiting at the bottom.

Float cancelling is godlike, but ZSS shouldn't really be in her shield in this matchup. You're so fast and she's so slow. When she's floating, jump on her stupid head. Her dair chain is super free at low %s (You can get 3 simply on reaction at 0% I'm pretty sure) and combos into bair, fair, or uair depending on how they squeeze out of it. You threaten a lot of vertical and horizontal space as ZSS against a character like Peach. Turnips cut off some space, but just navigate the platforms to get the drop in on her. The fact that you have your down-b jump and the up-b meteor mean that Peach can't be sleeping when she's recovering high.

Dunno much about the peach punish game, but I can assure you that ZSS's combo game on peach does convert into kills. And she can slowly push and bully peach out of her recovery with the space she threatens with down-b dj uair and up-b. And you're fast! Some of the negatives about ZSS you list are defensive negatives. And if you're fast enough to run circles around peach as she slowly tries to wall you out with fc fairs, then why would you let her keep you in shield instead of jumping over her, running to the platforms, or dash dance baiting stuff?

My two cents, same caveats as before, etc. (Don't bite my head off, Vixen)

Nair fair almost never connects in my region. Our good players are far too good at SDI

Since I'm the only one here who thinks Peach wins the MU, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqFNjvuXKOw

Watch the set, point stuff out. I'd really like to actually get a set over Silly Kyle in PM.

 

[Myst007_teh_newb]

Also, I would like to say that I think that ZSS soundly beats ROB. Probably +2 with the other fatsos, but definitely AT LEAST +1.

ROB's strengths are his boost fair approach, his projectile game, his gimp game, and his shield pressure mixups.

ZSS can exploit and take advantage of ROB's side-b start up and stuff his approaches pretty soundly. And if you aren't acomfortable with that, you can always run away from the robo-boost. Boost nair is so easily telegraphed that you can knock him out of start up even when he's super high up thanks to your up-b and your down-b. And, again, if you're not courageous enough to do that, you can zip away.

ROB's item game is pretty crucial in most of his matchups due to the zoning he can do with it, but you can crawl under his glide toss while having one of the best forward facing glide tosses of your own. If your item play is good, ZSS has the speed to nab the top from ROB every time and use it aggressively against him. It'll make him think twice before pulling out that top.

Not to mention that his laser can also be hilariously crawled under. He can angle it, so it's actually not that big of a deal, but it's really funny when it happens.

Gimping ZSS is really hard for ROB. ROB fair strings just give ZSS back her down-b, so they're essentially useless. Preserve your 2nd jump and ROB will almost never gimp you.

His shield pressure mixup game is still good, but you'll find yourself evading his moves more often than shielding them if you have the good spacing.

Meanwhile ZSS combos ROB for free just like any other fatty. Free cross-country nair strings across the stage into the easiest fair you will land in your life.

Down-b edge guards are incredibly easy because of how linear ROB's recovery is. It makes him work much harder than he has to against other characters.

NorCal's best ROB sneez just moved down to San Diego, so I got to playing against him and talking with him about the matchup. The general consensus in the ROB community is that ZSS is one of ROB's hardest matchups and I can definitely see why.

ZSS +2 over ROB, imo.

 

[Shokio]

This kinda of thing is hard to do because of our different regions and the different skill levels with our respective players with their respective characters. So I can only base this off of my personal experiences, naturally.

+3: Ganon, Charizard, DDD
+2: DK, Bowser, ROB, Wario
+1: Ivy, Samus, Pikachu, Snake, Zelda
0.5: Yoshi, Pit, Ike, Metaknight, Marth

0: Mario, Sonic, Lucario, Link, Peach

0.5: Jiggs, Squirtle, Icy's, Toon Link
-1: Roy, G&W, Diddy, Lucas, Luigi
-2: Kirby, Falcon
-3: Shiek
-4: Falco
-5: Wolf, Fox

A few notes:

Ganon is so high on the ease list because while the big-body chars are slow, they at least have range and large disjoints or armor to deal with faster foes. Ganon lacks the speed as well as any large sword/tail/hammer or armor, so ZSS can pretty much run circles around him and basically choose when she wants to go in.

Squirtle is slightly on the negative side because we've all agreed that the MU is "awkward". I can't considering something that feels "awkward" even. Anything that makes you feel uncomfortable is a disadvantage. She can combo him just fine, once she finally pops him up, but popping him up can be the hard part.

My placings for Marth and Ike may admittedly be very bias, because I consistently beat both SparkingZero (Ike) and Dizzy (Marth) with ZSS. But Marth is at a perfect combo weight for Marth and she gets free laser pokes on him. Her lasers neutralize Ike's QuickDraw game and she can snipe Ike out of Aether with F-Smash (it requires good timing but I constantly do it to Sparking). A divekick edgeguard usually means death for both characters as well (unless the Marth uses extremely good DI; Ike is done.)

Falco is below Wolf and Fox simply because he is easier to gimp; I agree with his placing.

Although ZSS beats Marth, Roy beats her due to his stronger punish game and CC + D-tilt. ZSS is a very weak character against CC. Roy is the pioneer of CC counters.

Falcon's rough, yeah, but I wouldn't put him on -3 tier due to his terrible, easy-to-read tech roll, and her ability to Up-Air him off-stage with ease. We know ZSS doesn't get much off of throws, but on Falcon, they're actually pretty effective. And of course he's easy to gimp.

Metaknight is actually in ZSS's favor, because comboing him is extremely free, especially with Dair. His light-ness makes Dair -> Bair kills effortless, and with no projectile and a trans sword, he can't swipe her lasers.

 

[Vixen]

I'd put Falcon at -3 or -3.5. his tech roll is easy to punish, but ZSS still struggles to reliably KILL him until very high percent on a lot of stages, Falcon has more guaranteed punishes that kill you with good DI around 70 or 80.

 

[ted dorosheff]

Zelda is superfree for ZSS.

Neutral B has a lot of endlag, so punish that, rather than challenging it.
Side B does return, but at a predictable arc. The arc CAN be manipulated, but not usually enough for it to cause a problem more than once or twice, provided you're good enough to react and adapt.

Zelda lacks any ability to make things happen. You're faster, with a better moveset. She has butt recovery, you have all the tools necessary to cover and punish pretty much anything she tries to do.

Also if you have a problem with side b, do what I do and dair the side b. it's hilarious. c:

Despite what you have said here, i still am having so much trouble with my zelda-main friend atm. I posted about this exact same thing here, if you could take a look and tell me what you think, i would appreciate it man.

Since i cant post links yet, im just gonna repost what i said right here:

So one of the things that i have the most trouble with is her neutral b. He (my buddy) uses zeldas nB a lot and rather quite effectively. The hit box on it is large and persistant. what he usually does is throw a dins fire out about halfway between him and me, and then when i come in (usually first with a lazer to detonate the dins fire, or just up and over the ball) he will either dash attack me, get under where im going to land and up smash, or space me out and then nB when i land near him.

One thing that i can land pretty successfully on him is my side B, Zss's tether lazer thing. This throws him up, and i usually get under and him and up smash, and then try to start combo'ing from there.

I think most of my problem with him, especially yesterday, is that 1. i was being too predictable, 2. my gameplay was adapted to another one of my friends who plays way more of a tech game and 3. i wasnt even using all of my combo openers on him. One of the things i like to do with him is do ZSS's dair juggle > combo. Im actually pretty good with the dair juggle and can routinely juggle him up to the ceiling > drop under him > upair for a vertical kill (assuming his DI is really off).

My zelda buddy has pretty much zero tech skill, his game is actually REALLY campy. Not sure if im using that term correctly, but if he plays any character that has a ranged attack (mario's fireballs, any character with a bow, pikachu's electric bolt thing that goes accross the ground like a slinky, etc) you will see him spam those attacks to a comical degree. Like he will sit under a platform as mario, spam fireballs (he has no shame, he will sit there and spam them for the entire game) and then if i attack from above, he will just upsmash, i'll DI away from him killing his combo game, and then he will run to the other side of the stage and do the exact same thing again.

 

[Vixen]

Sounds like you really need to stop being predictable and allow him to make the first move any time he tries to commit to anything.

Zelda's neutral b has a lot of end lag like I said previously. punish the end of the move, not the startup.

 

[Player-3]

zeldas a char that stuffs approaches, so don't throw moves at zelda, her buttons are better than your buttons but zss is nimble enough to sit just outside of her range and pressure zelda into pressing a button and then punish it

 

[Vixen]

Zeldas buttons are not better than ZSS's lmfao, she's just good at stuffing approaches and nothing more.

 

[Player-3]

they're better in the sense that they beat zss's in a direct trade which is the point i was trying to make to help him out lol

 

[D.C.L]

I haven't read everything but I see some comments about Zelda vs ZSS matchup. Well, maybe I can say something about this because I also use Zelda but as a secondary and much like my ZSS, my friends absolutely despise my Zelda.
As a match up, I really want to say that Zelda is more in favor to win.

I'm gonna go Kevin Hart here so Let Me Explain!

ZSS with great speed may sound like she has an advantage, plus lots of moves that can combo. Her KO moves are kind of limited however. (2nd hit Fair, Bair, Fsmash I would say are her main KO moves). Zelda though, I mean cmon, Sweetspot Fair and Bair, Up-Air, Fsmash, up-tilt just to name some, and to make things worse...transform to Sheik and make the match up more difficult...
I won't get into the Sheik match up though.

Zelda being floaty makes it nearly impossible to string hits properly, assuming the user also has good DI. ZSS downthrow, has such a tight window to actually get a legit hit combo on Zelda that it really isn't worth the risk of getting hit by a Nair or worse Sweetspot Fair from Zelda's boot.
Unless you have some REALLY good timing I would suggest to bait out an attack instead.

Things get worse for ZSS when off stage. Due to thether recovery, Zelda can possibly negate ZSS even be able to grab the ledge after a tether using Din's Fire (Side-B). When recovering with a tether, ZSS is actually a few frames vulnerable when reeling in to grab the ledge (she can get gimped like this by Fox). So with a Din's Fire placed near a ledge what can ZSS do besides try to wait it out???
I've yet to actually test this to make sure I'm right so if you believe I'm wrong then please by all means test this out because I don't want to give bad info.

Now this is minor but if by any reason that a ZSS player uses the Neutral B paralyzer, Zelda can just send it right back with Nayru's Love Neutral B. That's not the point though. it's Zelda's Nayru's Love is what I'm pointing out because I'm somehow convinced that it has invincible start up frames. Even though the PM3.5 change list doesn't say anything about invincibility. I'm just going to assume that it's the reduced start up frames instead.

I'm fairly certain that it's all because Zelda is floaty...and dealing with floaties is not something I enjoy as a ZSS main.

Correct me if I'm wrong, I don't like being wrong.

 

[Lust for Glory]

That's not the point though. it's Zelda's Nayru's Love is what I'm pointing out because I'm somehow convinced that it has invincible start up frames. Even though the PM3.5 change list doesn't say anything about invincibility. I'm just going to assume that it's the reduced start up frames instead.

I'm not entirely sure on the numbers, but after lurking quite a few times on the Zelda boards, I can surely say that Nayru's Love certainly does have invincible start up frames. However, this is only true when Zelda is grounded.

 

[Roxas215]

Yall think we beat ivy?? Maybe i just suck at the mu but bair kinda beats everything zss have imo. And ivy is a ...... to approach.

I dont get bodied by ivys by any means. But more often then not i end up loosing cause i can't close out that last stock against ivy. Last 3 pm tournaments i've been in i lost to a ivy game 3. Would love to know what im doing wrong.

 

[Player-3]

I haven't read everything but I see some comments about Zelda vs ZSS matchup. Well, maybe I can say something about this because I also use Zelda but as a secondary and much like my ZSS, my friends absolutely despise my Zelda.
As a match up, I really want to say that Zelda is more in favor to win.

I'm gonna go Kevin Hart here so Let Me Explain!

ZSS with great speed may sound like she has an advantage, plus lots of moves that can combo. Her KO moves are kind of limited however. (2nd hit Fair, Bair, Fsmash I would say are her main KO moves). Zelda though, I mean cmon, Sweetspot Fair and Bair, Up-Air, Fsmash, up-tilt just to name some, and to make things worse...transform to Sheik and make the match up more difficult...
I won't get into the Sheik match up though.

Zelda being floaty makes it nearly impossible to string hits properly, assuming the user also has good DI. ZSS downthrow, has such a tight window to actually get a legit hit combo on Zelda that it really isn't worth the risk of getting hit by a Nair or worse Sweetspot Fair from Zelda's boot.
Unless you have some REALLY good timing I would suggest to bait out an attack instead.

Things get worse for ZSS when off stage. Due to thether recovery, Zelda can possibly negate ZSS even be able to grab the ledge after a tether using Din's Fire (Side-B). When recovering with a tether, ZSS is actually a few frames vulnerable when reeling in to grab the ledge (she can get gimped like this by Fox). So with a Din's Fire placed near a ledge what can ZSS do besides try to wait it out???
I've yet to actually test this to make sure I'm right so if you believe I'm wrong then please by all means test this out because I don't want to give bad info.

Now this is minor but if by any reason that a ZSS player uses the Neutral B paralyzer, Zelda can just send it right back with Nayru's Love Neutral B. That's not the point though. it's Zelda's Nayru's Love is what I'm pointing out because I'm somehow convinced that it has invincible start up frames. Even though the PM3.5 change list doesn't say anything about invincibility. I'm just going to assume that it's the reduced start up frames instead.

I'm fairly certain that it's all because Zelda is floaty...and dealing with floaties is not something I enjoy as a ZSS main.

Correct me if I'm wrong, I don't like being wrong.

use up b vs zelda

shes easy to techchase

end uair strings with upb and restart string