3.6 ZSS Discussion

[Legit]

I find that whenever I use boosted up-b, if I'm at or near max range to tether, zss won't actually tether to the ledge, whereas a double jump -> up-b at the apex of the jump would tether in the same scenario. That's why I don't use it unless someone is about to hog ledge. O_O

 

[PsionicSabreur]

Been playing a bit more ZSS lately, and while this might be a tired subject, I'd like to weigh in on the character, although I'm definitely no expert.

First, I'm really feeling the loss of her old pivot grab.
My main question: is there a good alternative to it in her kit now?
3.0 ZSS always interested me in that she had a lot of defensive coverage out of dash back, but in a "defensive mixups" sort of way, in return, you get excellent conversions by playing this defensive game well. That's what I've tried to keep in mind when wrapping my head around her neutral game, anyways. I'm sure a lot of it comes down to personal style.
Anyways, with dsmash being worse on shields(?), loss of dash cancelled lasers, and loss of pivot grab this part of her ground game seems to have suffered, although I can understand the first two well enough. Prefacing every dash back with a projectile was a little unnecessary, and WD back/pivot dsmash still seems good, it just seems best used even more sparingly than it was before.

I don't really care about the standing grab or throws all too much, but if it were possible to restore just the pivot grab I'd be 100% for that, even if it were slightly nerfed to compensate.
Throws still might deserve slightly less endlag overall, though.

Her offensive game still has a ton of unique reset situations that I think might be a little under-appreciated when it comes to character flavor and design. More range behind her on nair is cool and sort of contributes to this as well, since it doesn't have a reverse hit. I think it plays into her combos and vortex game quite nicely.

That's some of what I've noticed from my occasional labbing with the character, anyways.

 

[Foo]

I find that whenever I use boosted up-b, if I'm at or near max range to tether, zss won't actually tether to the ledge, whereas a double jump -> up-b at the apex of the jump would tether in the same scenario. That's why I don't use it unless someone is about to hog ledge. O_O

Up-b lag let's you up-b against after falling only a very short distance, so it always helps your recovery distance. However, there are times you may not want to use it, kinda like marth side b. There are times where you may not want to use your down-b or double jump. It all depends.

 

[InfinityCollision]

First, I'm really feeling the loss of her old pivot grab.
My main question: is there a good alternative to it in her kit now?
3.0 ZSS always interested me in that she had a lot of defensive coverage out of dash back, but in a "defensive mixups" sort of way, in return, you get excellent conversions by playing this defensive game well. That's what I've tried to keep in mind when wrapping my head around her neutral game, anyways. I'm sure a lot of it comes down to personal style.
Anyways, with dsmash being worse on shields(?), loss of dash cancelled lasers, and loss of pivot grab this part of her ground game seems to have suffered, although I can understand the first two well enough. Prefacing every dash back with a projectile was a little unnecessary, and WD back/pivot dsmash still seems good, it just seems best used even more sparingly than it was before.

You're right, that part of her game was severely weakened. I miss the pivot grab too, mixups into pivot grabs were a big part of my game.

 

[Vixen]

I also miss setting up roll traps with her long ass grab. and nair to grab at super low percents when they DI away or roll away. o.o

 

[Foo]

I also miss setting up roll traps with her long *** grab. and nair to grab at super low percents when they DI away or roll away. o.o

All aerials except dair connect to grab at low %s works regardless of DI.

 

[Vixen]

All aerials except dair connect to grab at low %s works regardless of DI.

DI down+away is usually enough to avoid 3.5 nair/uair grab.

 

[Foo]

DI down+away is usually enough to avoid 3.5 nair/uair grab.

DI does almost nothing since it knocks them back so little. SDI down would probably do it though. It mostly depends on fall speed.

 

[Vixen]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kWHV4vySw0 can I get some critique? First 3.5 tournament I attended.

 

[Vixen]

Is there a reason we aren't using ZSS Fair in a similar vein to Falcon Nair? The properties are very similar. Comes out on the same frame. ZSS has a slightly longer reach, but the hitbox as a whole isn't as wide. Second hit is stronger. I THINK ZSS might have slightly more landing lag though.

I'm more curious regarding using her Fair the way Falcon uses nair vs Falco, Fox, Falcon, Wolf, Samus. Falcons nair to break up Falco laser approaches, Fox Nair approaches, Wolf/Samus projectiles. I think Fair might be a good way to crack these match ups, or make them easier.

 

[Foo]

Basically for the same reason that Fox doesn't use lasers to approach like falco. They are totally different moves with totally different purposes, but I'll list all the reasons anyway (in no particular order)

1. First hit falcon nair is out for 5 frames and the second hit is out for 9 for a total of 14 frames. First his zss fair is out of 3 frames, and second hit is out for 4 frames, for a total of 7.
2. Falcon nair takes place over 29 frames and ZSS fair takes place over 20 frames.
3. Falcon nair has 14 frames of natural lag and 7 frames of (L-canceled) landing lag. ZSS fair has 20 frames of natural lag, and 10 frames of (L-canceled) landing lag (Natural lag being the number of frames in which you are stuck in the animation assuming you don't hit the ground in that time).
4. From what I've seen, ZSS fair gets stuffed by almost everything.
5. ZSS fair does not combo into knee.

 

[G13_Flux]

mostly that^

also falcons nair doesnt break up laser approaches for the record. lasers break up falcons nair approach since they arent clankable. falcons nair is actually pretty good against a lot of projectile users.. except for falco.

in my experience, ZSS fair does have its uses because of its duration, but not to approach outright like you would with falcon. the time between her kicks is shorter, so you can actually beat out some projectiles with decent timing, but use it a bit more sparingly, cuz its not as safe on shield like falcons is (falcons is -2, but thats easy to perform becasue of an amazing SHFFL. ZSS is -3 but youre going to find yourself adding a few frames on to that because her SHFFL isnt CFs SHFFL).

 

[Foo]

mostly that^

also falcons nair doesnt break up laser approaches for the record. lasers break up falcons nair approach since they arent clankable. falcons nair is actually pretty good against a lot of projectile users.. except for falco.

in my experience, ZSS fair does have its uses because of its duration, but not to approach outright like you would with falcon. the time between her kicks is shorter, so you can actually beat out some projectiles with decent timing, but use it a bit more sparingly, cuz its not as safe on shield like falcons is (falcons is -2, but thats easy to perform becasue of an amazing SHFFL. ZSS is -3 but youre going to find yourself adding a few frames on to that because her SHFFL isnt CFs SHFFL).

-3? By my math, I got -5. (Note, accidentally said 9 frames of landing lag instead of 10. Oops

(10+4.45)/2.235=6.465. Rounded down, that's 6 frames of shield stun. 6 minus 10 frames of (L-canceled) landing lag equals -4 minus one frame because the aerial cannot come out the frame you hit the ground equals -5 if timed perfectly.

 

[PsionicSabreur]

The biggest problem for me is the duration of the move, as well as ZSS having a longer SHFFL airtime. In general you'll have to choose between throwing it out quickly out of a SH, and covering your landing with the second kick whereas Falcon gets to do both.

 

[G13_Flux]

-3? By my math, I got -5. (Note, accidentally said 9 frames of landing lag instead of 10. Oops

(10+4.45)/2.235=6.465. Rounded down, that's 6 frames of shield stun. 6 minus 10 frames of (L-canceled) landing lag equals -4 minus one frame because the aerial cannot come out the frame you hit the ground equals -5 if timed perfectly.

oh ok im pretty sure it would be -4 then if done perfectly, because the shield stun is applied after hitlag is over, not the frame you hit with it.

frame 1: hit lag is over, ZSS lands on ground (first frame of lag), and shield stun applied
frame 2: 2nd frame of lag, and 2nd frame of shield stun
frame 3: 3rd of lag, 3rd of shield stun
frame 4: 4th of lag, 4th of shield stun
frame 5: 5th of lag, 5th of shield stun
frame 6: 6th of lag, 6th of shield stun (and last)
frame 7: 7th of lag, 1st actionable frame for opponent
frame 8: 8th of lag, 2nd actionable frame
frame 9: 9th of lag, 3rd actionable frame
frame 10: 10th of lag (last), 4th actionable frame
frame 11: both actionable

so the opponent has 4 frames where theyre actionable and ZSS isnt. im 95 percent sure this is how it works but I dont have any developer posts atm to cite myself on the hitlag thing so ill try to see if I can do some debug testing on this later tonight.

even if it is -4, with her quickest move at 2 frames, she could tecnically jab and be safe with it. but this is realistically never going to happen since you need to be perfect on both the jab and the SHFFL, which neither are likely to happen consistently. if its -5 she could never be safe unless your opponent isnt that great. bottom line I wouldnt fair unless youre opponent is in the air, or youre in a more situational position where you can space it on shield.

 

[Vixen]

mostly that^

also falcons nair doesnt break up laser approaches for the record. lasers break up falcons nair approach since they arent clankable. falcons nair is actually pretty good against a lot of projectile users.. except for falco.

in my experience, ZSS fair does have its uses because of its duration, but not to approach outright like you would with falcon. the time between her kicks is shorter, so you can actually beat out some projectiles with decent timing, but use it a bit more sparingly, cuz its not as safe on shield like falcons is (falcons is -2, but thats easy to perform becasue of an amazing SHFFL. ZSS is -3 but youre going to find yourself adding a few frames on to that because her SHFFL isnt CFs SHFFL).

This is wrong. When Falco approaches Falcon with lasers, good falcons will throw out a nair to catch a short hop laser before the laser is even out. Similarly, Falcon also uses nair to beat projectiles with hurtboxes.

So I went in to the lab and tested it out vs Oksas. It DOES in fact work as an approach. It works better than nair as an anti-approach vs smaller and more ground, orientated characters. I'll post videos or timestamps once AZPM gets to uploading.

Nice to know that my experimentation has broken the mold.

Also I did fair to jab all day. It works provided you delay the fair so that the second hitbox hits their shield SUPER low. I'm a Melee spacie main, so this isn't anything new to me.

This is also super useful vs Wolf's new lasers. Fair's first hit will beat the laser and the second will stuff anything Wolf tries short of backing off.

I think ZSS players need to stop looking at the numbers and start actually practicing ****.

 

[G13_Flux]

This is wrong. When Falco approaches Falcon with lasers, good falcons will throw out a nair to catch a short hop laser before the laser is even out. Similarly, Falcon also uses nair to beat projectiles with hurtboxes.

So I went in to the lab and tested it out vs Oksas. It DOES in fact work as an approach. It works better than nair as an anti-approach vs smaller and more ground, orientated characters. I'll post videos or timestamps once AZPM gets to uploading.

Nice to know that my experimentation has broken the mold.

Also I did fair to jab all day. It works provided you delay the fair so that the second hitbox hits their shield SUPER low. I'm a Melee spacie main, so this isn't anything new to me.

This is also super useful vs Wolf's new lasers. Fair's first hit will beat the laser and the second will stuff anything Wolf tries short of backing off.

I think ZSS players need to stop looking at the numbers and start actually practicing ****.

It is not wrong. Falcos lasers are unclankable. your nair approaches will be shut down by lasers all day, since you cannot nair through them. what you have described is different. there is a difference between using a quick approach to hit an opponent who is recovering from lag, (tech, attack, spotdodge, etc) and trying to use an approach to shut someone down in neutral. the speed of falcons nair approach and its range is amazing, and if you can use that to keep falco at bay while hes trying to get a foot in neutral and gain some favorable space, then great. but smart falco players in neutral will completely shut down your approach simply with lasers, and even with the speed of your approach, its not going to do you any good without some platforms to get you away from the lasers. wolf and other users are different, since you CAN hit through them with your nair.

the problem with ZSSs fair as an approach, is that shielding will beat it. yes, it technically can be safe to frame 7 grabs if you do it PERFECTLY. since ZSSs SHFFL isnt that great though, the times that you do it perfectly are going to be very rare. theres usually going to be at least a couple to a few frames that you are off by. its not that you cant use it for projectiles, because you definitely can. but make sure that you have a good read on your opponent because if they shield you are going to get shield grabbed 90% of the time, if not more. 10 frames of lag can also be punished a bit easier, especially since they range of fair isnt that great, and the time that ZSS spends in her SHFFL is so much more than falcon.

bottom line, between hitbox duration, range, SHFFL speed, end lag, reward, and safety, ZSSs fair is mostly inferior to falcons nair. you can use it in a similar manor sometimes, but if you try to use it as liberally as falcons nair, you will find yourself having problems. i thought i could do the same thing at first when i tried to play ZSS, but i had to cut back because i was getting punished too often and the reward wasnt worth the risk. fair is meant to play a different role in her toolkit based off its design.

 

[Vixen]

It is not wrong. Falcos lasers are unclankable. your nair approaches will be shut down by lasers all day, since you cannot nair through them. what you have described is different. there is a difference between using a quick approach to hit an opponent who is recovering from lag, (tech, attack, spotdodge, etc) and trying to use an approach to shut someone down in neutral. the speed of falcons nair approach and its range is amazing, and if you can use that to keep falco at bay while hes trying to get a foot in neutral and gain some favorable space, then great. but smart falco players in neutral will completely shut down your approach simply with lasers, and even with the speed of your approach, its not going to do you any good without some platforms to get you away from the lasers. wolf and other users are different, since you CAN hit through them with your nair.

the problem with ZSSs fair as an approach, is that shielding will beat it. yes, it technically can be safe to frame 7 grabs if you do it PERFECTLY. since ZSSs SHFFL isnt that great though, the times that you do it perfectly are going to be very rare. theres usually going to be at least a couple to a few frames that you are off by. its not that you cant use it for projectiles, because you definitely can. but make sure that you have a good read on your opponent because if they shield you are going to get shield grabbed 90% of the time, if not more. 10 frames of lag can also be punished a bit easier, especially since they range of fair isnt that great, and the time that ZSS spends in her SHFFL is so much more than falcon.

bottom line, between hitbox duration, range, SHFFL speed, end lag, reward, and safety, ZSSs fair is mostly inferior to falcons nair. you can use it in a similar manor sometimes, but if you try to use it as liberally as falcons nair, you will find yourself having problems. i thought i could do the same thing at first when i tried to play ZSS, but i had to cut back because i was getting punished too often and the reward wasnt worth the risk. fair is meant to play a different role in her toolkit based off its design.

You're misunderstanding. Have you watched high level Falcon vs Falco matches? Falcon will nair to beat a laser approach. Specifically BEFORE THE LASER IS OUT. This is an uncommon, but strong strategy most characters with good quick hitboxes can do. Falco tries to come in. You throw out a nair or something to throw off Falco's timing and spacing. This has nothing to do with beating the actual laser. It's intangible. I've played this game for 10 years, and main Falco in Melee. I KINDA KNOW THIS.

Doing it perfectly is easy. Delay the fair. Jab. Messing this up is nearly impossible if you're even remotely technical. Even just a few minutes in the lab should be enough to get the timing down.

Fair as an approach works in practice. Do I need to continue to use it in tournament for you to believe me?

 

[G13_Flux]

i understand what youre saying. I also watch plenty of upper level melee, and have seen lots of matches, and played them myself. the approach doest work that well for falcon in neutral. all falco has to do is run away > laser, and youre going to be locked into a combo pretty soon. it only works if youre within a close distance and falco doesnt decide to nair or CC your nair. is nair going to be useful at points in the MU? yes. there will be times when you can catch falco off guard with it when hes trying to gain favorable space, but is it going to be useful right when you start off the match, or when falco already has favorable space? no, not usually. a nair approach right off the bat usually gets shut down quite easily and simply, and you see falcons getting shut down with lasers quite often

in regards to ZSSs fair, I already said that there will times when it will be useful. since you were specifically referencing to falcons nair, and why were not using it like falcons, well we already told you why. its inferior in almost every way in terms of a tool in neutral. does that mean it doesnt have its uses? of course not. I find myself using it occasionally too. but should it be used like falcons to run at the opponents shield and try to pressure them? i dont think so. youre underestimating the amount of times you can SHFFL PERFECTLY. even professional fox SHFFLs dont occurr frame perfectly all that often, its easy to be off by a frame or 2. what makes you think youre going to do it perfectly with ZSS every time?

I do believe it has some uses for projectiles and using its duration to stuff out some approaches or attempts at you. but in response to your first post on the topic, no it shouldnt be used as liberally as falcons nair because of its qualities. if you disagree with that, then feel free to keep using it as you please. i have no knowledge of anything youve ever done in a tournament or as a player, so dont use tournaments or time playing the game as a reason to why i should believe you. I know people that have been playing the game for almost 10 years and still dont really get the competitive side to it.

 

[Vixen]

G13 at this point you obviously don't understand what I'm talking about. I'm going to leave it at that. I'm not going to quantify any og the rest of your post with a response.

Does anyone else here have issues against Ness or Falcon? :|

 

[Shokio]

I personally like ZSS vs. Ness because I enjoy his combo weight when using this character. ZSS vs. Falcon is undoubtedly in Falcon's favor, but she definitely has the tools she needs to deal with him. I fight Youngblood's Falcon all the time with ZSS so I know ZSS has some nasty stuff on him.

His tech roll is kinda bad so it's easy to down smash him after a tech roll. At a certain distance, you can even cover both the neutral get-up and the roll-in at the same time. Down Smash and FSmash also eat his Side-B recovery alive since they can easily hit him before he can sweetspot the ledge.

ZSS loses this MU in the neutral and it can be risky to throw out your paralyzer, so I do think you have to slam on the breaks and play this MU very slowly and not commit to things unless you 100% know you'll get a hit or grab. But once you get a grab and position him off-stage, Falcon's life becomes a living nightmare. Falcon's recovery is easily punishable in it's own right of course, but ZSS really, REALLY gives it to him. One divekick and it's pretty much GGs for his stock unless you mess up.

Oh, and you can Uair him for days and I often use it as my main punishing tool for Falcon because the follow-up Uairs you get are great for carrying him off-stage where you want him. But yeah, like I said, you have to slow down a bit as I don't think you can fight Falcon with her like you do everyone else. His punishes on her make it waaay to risky to be throwing out moves and auto-piloting since a lot of her moveset has considerable endlag on whiff. (Utilt, down tilt, side b, a laser that's too close, etc WILL mean a knee. Even down Smash can be punished if they approach at the right height.)

 

[Vixen]

I'm pretty sure ZSS loses to Falcon. ZSS has one of the worst tech rolls in the game,

I personally like ZSS vs. Ness because I enjoy his combo weight when using this character. ZSS vs. Falcon is undoubtedly in ZSS's favor, but she definitely has the tools she needs to deal with him. I fight Youngblood's Falcon all the time with ZSS so I know ZSS has some nasty stuff on him.

His tech roll is kinda bad so it's easy to down smash him after a tech roll. At a certain distance, you can even cover both the neutral get-up and the roll-in at the same time. Down Smash and FSmash also eat his Side-B recovery alive since they can easily hit him before he can sweetspot the ledge.

ZSS loses this MU in the neutral and it can be risky to throw out your paralyzer, so I do think you have to slam on the breaks and play this MU very slowly and not commit to things unless you 100% know you'll get a hit or grab. But once you get a grab and position him off-stage, Falcon's life becomes a living nightmare. Falcon's recovery is easily punishable in it's own right of course, but ZSS really, REALLY gives it to him. One divekick and it's pretty much GGs for his stock unless you mess up.

Oh, and you can Uair him for days and I often use it as my main punishing tool for Falcon because the follow-up Uairs you get are great for carrying him off-stage where you want him. But yeah, like I said, you have to slow down a bit as I don't think you can fight Falcon with her like you do everyone else. His punishes on her make it waaay to risky to be throwing out moves and auto-piloting since a lot of her moveset has considerable endlag on whiff. (Utilt, down tilt, side b, a laser that's too close, etc WILL mean a knee. Even down Smash can be punished if they approach at the right height.)

I think ZSS loses both match ups. Ness has superior horizontal control, zss lacks dash cancel to punish psi magnet on lasers, and her ability to approach ness from above or in front is lacking.

Vs Falcon I think she loses too. He's generally a better character, has easier, harder punishes, and reliable kill set ups. ZSS.... doesn't. Her tech roll is laughably slow to the point of being easy to react to. While ZSS has similar things on Falcon she lacks those free kill set ups. Sure you can semi-reliably dsmash out of a tech chase, but getting the kill is where it gets tough. Falcon touches ZSS around 40% and she dies. Grab is guaranteed death around ~70.

As for recovery, I found that ZSS doesn't edgeguard Falcon very well if he takes the high road. Sure you have nice, free stuff if he comes from below the stage but good falcons are not going to be in that situation very often at all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8OYWpdNuVQ feel free to observe this if you think there's something I could have been doing better. try to forgive the suicides, getting max distance down b is kinda hard sometimes.

 

[Foo]

Yeah, I kinda agree with vixen on this one. I'm really surprised shokio thinks zss beats falcon. Their neutrals are basically the same, except falcon's is better in almost every way, and you can never use side-b because of his air game. I do think falcon is really easy to edgeguard for zss, but not particularly easy. It's pretty easy to edgeguard falcon with anybody, and zss doesn't have a much easier time edgaurding him. Also, falcon is really good against zss recovery. Knee is real hard to amsah tech, and he can just keep ledgehop kneeing your tether hop until you die. If he hits the reverse knee... rip.

Also, zss is a really good combo weight for falcon. He likes them light and sorta floaty, just like zss. Getting grabbed means death at too many %s. Although zss throws are actually pretty good against falcon (for once), they aren't really enough. Yeah, you can backthrow him off stage for early kills, but good falcons won't let you grab them close to ledge. That's like falcon 101.

(EDIT: I just realized, shokio probably meant to say "ZSS vs Falcon is undoubtedly in Falcon's favor, but she definitely has the tools to deal with him." That would make more sense)

However, I think zss beats ness. You can move around him really well, and he has bad reactions to spaced bair if you DI his dash attack and fair correctly. ZSS is also really good at taking out ness recovery. If you don't challenge him while he's in the air, you beat up on him in most other areas. (also, ness is combo food for zss)

 

[Shokio]

LOL yeah, typo. I meant to say she loses to Falcon.

 

[Player-3]

falcon is really dumb you just 0-death eachother lol

even or slightly falcon favor mu imo because you gimp him but he cant gimp you, take him to dreamland and di out of knee combos force him to uair you, live to 180 and just go for gimps alot thats what i do

also learning so sdi the first hit of nair behind him is really good throws them off alot

 

[Deleted member]

falcon is really dumb you just 0-death eachother lol

even or slightly falcon favor mu imo because you gimp him but he cant gimp you, take him to dreamland and di out of knee combos force him to uair you, live to 180 and just go for gimps alot thats what i do

also learning so sdi the first hit of nair behind him is really good throws them off alot

No no no you don't understand

you can't DI any of falcons combos, but you can DI literally all of ZSSs combos.

 

[TimeSmash]

I do wonder if the UpB meteor can set up into Fair...I'm doubting it but I figure you guys would know more than me since I play MAYBE once a week, haha. Usually if I get the meteor, I'll USmash, UpB again, Utilt, and don't but should definitely try Nairing.

 

[Player-3]

No no no you don't understand

you can't DI any of falcons combos, but you can DI literally all of ZSSs combos.

i mean as a zss main all of my combos don't actually work, all my opponents are just bad and i only get follow ups because im a superior player and read all their DI but captain falcon is just broken and brainless

 

[Vixen]

With good DI Falcon gets out of most of ZSS's standard stuff. You gotta go for the jank.

Also I've been playing around with a new option from the ledge. Ledge jump to boot jump plasma wire. ZSS can act out of her ledge jump super fast ala Ganon, and the boosted second jump can actually take you from the ledge to the top platform of BF/DL64. Super legit recovery mixup from the ledge imho. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8OYWpdNuVQ#t=3m54s

 

[Foo]

With good DI Falcon gets out of most of ZSS's standard stuff. You gotta go for the jank.

Also I've been playing around with a new option from the ledge. Ledge jump to boot jump plasma wire. ZSS can act out of her ledge jump super fast ala Ganon, and the boosted second jump can actually take you from the ledge to the top platform of BF/DL64. Super legit recovery mixup from the ledge imho. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8OYWpdNuVQ#t=3m54s

I think everyone can instantly act out of tournament winner now. In fact, I played around with ledgedashing with it. (works on every character, but it worse than normal ledgedashing.) The option you listed is valid, but I tend not to like it as much because it puts you above them and gives them plenty of time to get under you. Works fairly well against slower characters as a mixup, though. (Actually, there's lots of unexplored ledge options. Tons of characters can get invincible aerials off of standard ledge jump. I wonder if people don't use it that much because of melee, or because it puts you above them if they just stand there.)

 

[Foo]

No no no you don't understand

you can't DI any of falcons combos, but you can DI literally all of ZSSs combos.

ZSS and falcon are good at comboing floatier chararacters, but not so great against super fast fallers. Falcon falls much faster than zss. Also, yeah, falcon and zss totally have the same throw options and you can just sdi out of knee just like zss fair kappa.

EDIT: Whoops, double post. Thought I hit edit, but I guess I hit reply.

 

[Vixen]

I think everyone can instantly act out of tournament winner now. In fact, I played around with ledgedashing with it. (works on every character, but it worse than normal ledgedashing.) The option you listed is valid, but I tend not to like it as much because it puts you above them and gives them plenty of time to get under you. Works fairly well against slower characters as a mixup, though. (Actually, there's lots of unexplored ledge options. Tons of characters can get invincible aerials off of standard ledge jump. I wonder if people don't use it that much because of melee, or because it puts you above them if they just stand there.)

what i like is that even DJC characters has a solid ledgedash provided they do a ledgejump. I don't think this option should be spammed vs characters with a lot of vertical coverage, but it works when they don't expect it. ZSS is super unerr-epresented, so I think it's fair to say that nobody will expect it.

 

[hype machine]

I was thinking of picking this character up as a secondary. Any tips, bread and butter combos, to get me started. Also I'm interested in this character because I feel this character is underrated, and underused.

 

[Lust for Glory]

Went to a weekly yesterday, and got a 5th place finish, losing to Saga (who has experience in the ZSS ditto; why did you teach him @ Vixen ;_; ) and Softie, who went Diddy. Game 1 was pretty close, although he was able to take it. Game 2 was where I fell apart. I pretty much have 0 Diddy experience and he was able to catch on to what I was doing, and I wasn't able to get as much control on bananas.

What should I be doing vs Diddy? What stages does Diddy struggle to keep up, and where should I avoid taking Diddy?

 

[Nakamaru]

So i've tried really hard to learn ZSS over the past month or so. So far she just feels very lackluster. I haven't found anything that is a guaranteed setup for her kill moves. Most of her setups are the opponent not DI'ing her moves correctly. Once they figured out how to DI her hits and throws it was a nightmare to get kills. Her neutral B is practically worthless against any opponent that can power shield. She has zero followups off of any of her throws, and she can't approach any character.

The only reliable way i've found to play her is to do retreating Nairs, early SH uairs, and DD grab until they are off stage then try for a D-smash setup or following them with a bair.

And I would give anything to have a real recovery. Her tether is god awful after the update. She used to be able to pull far back or onstage after hanging. But now she is in so much lag that she gets auto punished by any patient player on the ledge.

This is just my experience with her though. I've read through some of the posts and the feeling I get is she just needs a little love to get to that sweetspot of not to free (ganon) but be tournament viable.

As of right now she loses outright to anyone with a decent projectile, squirtle/sonic, and god help you if you play a falcon.

thoughts?

 

[Foo]

So i've tried really hard to learn ZSS over the past month or so. So far she just feels very lackluster. I haven't found anything that is a guaranteed setup for her kill moves. Most of her setups are the opponent not DI'ing her moves correctly. Once they figured out how to DI her hits and throws it was a nightmare to get kills. Her neutral B is practically worthless against any opponent that can power shield. She has zero followups off of any of her throws, and she can't approach any character.

The only reliable way i've found to play her is to do retreating Nairs, early SH uairs, and DD grab until they are off stage then try for a D-smash setup or following them with a bair.

And I would give anything to have a real recovery. Her tether is god awful after the update. She used to be able to pull far back or onstage after hanging. But now she is in so much lag that she gets auto punished by any patient player on the ledge.

This is just my experience with her though. I've read through some of the posts and the feeling I get is she just needs a little love to get to that sweetspot of not to free (ganon) but be tournament viable.

As of right now she loses outright to anyone with a decent projectile, squirtle/sonic, and god help you if you play a falcon.

thoughts?

ZSS is a LOT harder to play than, say, falcon. Her combo game is particularly tricky to master, especially since it involves using specific hitboxes on all her moves. If you want to combo with nair correctly, you need to know when to use the forwards and behind hitbox of nair (which hits targets forwards) and when to use what hitboxes of upair etc. At the right %s against characters that aren't fast fallers, upair to reverse nair to fair is a pretty reliable combo. Her throws though... yeah, those are pretty trash. Only thing I get is tech chases and follow ups off the occasional flubbed upthrow DI.

She can't really approach like some characters, but she doesn't quite have to. You generally want to preform a spacing game until you can get your opponent in disadvantage, using bair and baiting stuff out to punish. Also, blaster is better than you are giving it credit for. It's one of the most spammable projectiles this patch, and can be spammed faster than pretty much all other projectiles, while clanking with pretty much all of them too. The samus matchup is funny because you can actually outcamp her xD

I'd say she has some major weaknesses for sure, but she has some major strengths too. I put her around middle of the cast, probably on the higher side, but it's hard to say since I've never seen anyone who knew spent a thousandth of the time learning the zss matchup as I have learning zss.

As for her recovery, it's actually pretty good if you know how to do it. Against some characters, like kirby, MK, and marth, all you can do is drift forward and bend over, but against most of the cast, there is almost nothing they can do about fade away. If you diagonally back and down, and then tilt the stick forward more (but still down) once you get far enough from stage, then start spamming the b button, you can down-b onto the ledge, and flipstool the person holding ledge, sending you safely onto stage with minimal lag. Best part is, it works even if they are invulerable. If you do it right, you can also just down-b straight onto stage. You also have mixups with falling slightly further into down-b wall jump etc. etc. It's a really dumb recovery tbh. It really seems like a character can either wreck your recovery for free, or can do nothing about it at all.

Went to a weekly yesterday, and got a 5th place finish, losing to Saga (who has experience in the ZSS ditto; why did you teach him @ Vixen ;_; ) and Softie, who went Diddy. Game 1 was pretty close, although he was able to take it. Game 2 was where I fell apart. I pretty much have 0 Diddy experience and he was able to catch on to what I was doing, and I wasn't able to get as much control on bananas.

What should I be doing vs Diddy? What stages does Diddy struggle to keep up, and where should I avoid taking Diddy?

Best success I have in the diddy matchup is getting a really good item game. Being able to catch his bananas and peanuts with wavedashes out of your dash dance is surprisingly easy, and super effective. You can also use your speed to pick up bananas on the ground when you have the chance. Other than that, it's really hard to combo him at low %s so you'll mostly be trying to be spacing bairs, tech chasing with dthrow, and getting hard reads with side-b or dsmash (but be careful). You also have a good chance of gimping him with dsmash since it's hard to sweetspot with diddy up-b. Once you get him to mid%s, getting off the ground into a backwards nair will lead to fair for a kill. If you miss that kill combo % range... good luck. Landing spaced bair on diddy when that's all he's avoiding is really hard.

idk that much about stages, but I think you want some good stage surface area or smaller blast zones and you need platforms. I really liked PS2 in the matchup, but wario ware and ghz also worked pretty well. I'd avoid FD, smashville, and yoshi's island. I'd have to play the matchup some more to be sure on all this stuff though.

 

[Vixen]

Went to a weekly yesterday, and got a 5th place finish, losing to Saga (who has experience in the ZSS ditto; why did you teach him @ Vixen ;_; ) and Softie, who went Diddy. Game 1 was pretty close, although he was able to take it. Game 2 was where I fell apart. I pretty much have 0 Diddy experience and he was able to catch on to what I was doing, and I wasn't able to get as much control on bananas.

What should I be doing vs Diddy? What stages does Diddy struggle to keep up, and where should I avoid taking Diddy?

Arizona has another ZSS player? Since when? o:

Diddy is a difficult match up, I struggled to beat ForteFreak when he played Diddy in 3.02, but I did manage to pull it off.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9h_ij3QPBDw#t=10m52s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2kUtuiDIn4

With 3.5 my advice would be this:

You have better mobility, including an extremely good glide toss/AGT. With how easy it is to catch items in PM, your focus should be preventing, or taking control of items. your paralyser + mobility should either prevent bananas from being set up, or disrupt diddy once he gets stuff started.

For approaching, avoid using neutral air. You should focus on getting in close and setting up tech chases with her normal grab and extremely solid up and downthrows. Since Diddy is short, your fair, bair, and dtilt will be your best tools for approaching. You may even pull out the brawl gimmics by rolling in to Diddy's space and quickly busting out a grab or a utilt.

For stages you NEED to avoid stages that are A. large and B. lack platforms. Try to avoid PS2, DL, FD, and SV when chosing your neutral. When its your turn to ban stages, I highly recommend you ban Smashville, FD, and either Dreamland, Norfair, or Skyworld. When its your turn to pick a stage, your best stages are Yoshi's Story, Fountain of Dreams, and Wario Ware. Battlefield and Green Hill Zone are fairly neutral picks. Lylat is an extremely solid pick, too. The ledge is no problem for you, and you'll likely steal free stocks from someone of FF or S0ftie's caliber on recovery since Lylat is kinda jank sometimes.

 

[Lust for Glory]

Yeah, I'm a baby ZSS, who just played her as a fun secondary in 3.02, and got really serious with her around a month before 3.02 ended. 3.5 came, and I just stuck with her, since Link got hit with the nerf-hammer really hard.

As for bananas, I'll work around with all the item tech there is to get them in my control without much trouble.

As for approaching, what exactly is so bad about Nair that I should avoid using it if possible?

As for stage choice, I guess I had the right idea for what was a correct stage. I was trying to avoid all flat and/or large stages, and went with Battlefield for game 1. Game 2, I was hoping for Lylat, but S0ftie banned it. So i ran it back to BF in hopes that I could take that game (We were both around kill percent on last stock on game 1), but I got rekt lol.

Anyways, going back again today to see if I can place higher.

Also, @ Vixen , what is this crawl tech that Saga claims you taught him for better dealing with items? :o

 

[LTROwen]

Sup Merlin, Saga here ;D
The crawl tech was something S0ftie taught me, actually, characters with crawl have superjanky ways of dtilting and dsmashing while holding an item :3 I look forward to seeing you again tonight!!

Diddy matchup is exactly what Vixen said, I personally don't like it very much in general which is why you saw me go Zelda

EDIT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3aBovOO2dM is what I'm talking about

"ZSS Dsmashing while holding my banana. Nightmare fuel." -S0ftie <3

 

[Lust for Glory]

Sup Merlin, Saga here ;D
The crawl tech was something S0ftie taught me, actually, characters with crawl have superjanky ways of dtilting and dsmashing while holding an item :3 I look forward to seeing you again tonight!!

Diddy matchup is exactly what Vixen said, I personally don't like it very much in general which is why you saw me go Zelda

EDIT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3aBovOO2dM is what I'm talking about

"ZSS Dsmashing while holding my banana. Nightmare fuel." -S0ftie <3

Sweet, I'll be in the lab and see if I can get it down. See you later, hopefully in another ZSS ditto