In a way, yeah? I can kinda see where they want to go as far as her setups into and out of her more unique options (dsmash, upb, etc), but there are issues with precision, reliability, and/or lack of effective setups that basically lead back to us spamming nairs and uairs into fairs. There are tricky positional options like reverse hit aerials that play into that sometimes, but they're fairly precise and a lot of the time they carry very little benefit over basic nair/uair carries finishing with a fair, edgeguard attempt, or positional advantage near the ledge.
There are so many different friggin combo moves like zss. Basically her whole kit is made of combo moves with some exceptions, so I'll break them down a teeny bit. I plan on making a video guide to all of this stuff over the summer when school is over. Keep in mind, a lot of this stuff is SUPER tricky and I haven't come close to mastering or figuring it all out, but I'm studying it.
Forward nair: Beat it by DIing down and away at lower %s and up and away at higher %s depending on fall speed (fast fallers always DI down and away).
Backwards nair: Beat it by Ding up and away unless a fast faller. This WILL combo into something unless the zss player messes up or is against a fast faller. DIng up just limits her follow up options. If you are a fast faller or semi fast faller, you generally want to DI this one down or you will be free to punish.
(basically, average characters want to DI reverse nair up and forwards nair down).
Begin massive mixups off dsmash___________________________________________________________
Reverse bair/weak bair: Haven't tested this too too much, but from what I can tell, it has identical angle to forward nair, but there's a slight twist. If you do this, they can't tell which side of bair you are going for at all. It's a pure DI mixup and is better than nair out of dsmash in everyway save for hitlag multiplier from what I can tell.
Upair: This move also has a di mixup out of dsmash based on whether you get the forwards or backwards hitbox. Both hitboxes seem to be the same.
First hitfair: Links to either grab, dtilt, or uptilt. Loses to asdi down.
Backwardsish nair: Pure theory here, but if you shorthopped slightly past them and they assumed you slightly biffed a mixup on weak bair, but backwards nair will still hit forwards.
Dair: Can't think if mixups based off of this, but you could hit dair instead of another choice here and it works really well in my experience.
You start all of these options by shorthopping and fast falling directly into them and doing an aerial last split second before hitting the ground with a slight drift either way too fast for them to react to the direction. So, if they guess forwards or backwards wrong they DI in, and if they guess bair or upair wrong, they could DI suboptimally if they are semifloaty at mid %s. However, you probably just want to choose the option against their fall speed/di. Most people either DI up or down against zss aerials. As for fair, you could just throw that in every now and again (comboing into dtilt or uptilt depending on fall speed) because they will be DIng for an aerial and not ASDIng down.
End dsmash mixups_________________________________________________________________________________
Dair strong/weak: Haven't really found a use for weak dair. Maybe at high %s against really light characters? idk
First hit up-b: Great combo starter. Too bad I can't figure out a way to ONLY get the first hit.
Powershields and empty short hops are much better responses to most projectiles tbh. MK, eh, I'd argue they're playing the matchup wrong if they feel pressured by paralyzer. Sonic... maybe.
Depends on the projectiles. I'd argue that if someone is spamming projectiles, it's better to just outspam them rather than be forced to approach. Also, mk doesn't really have a way to deal with blaster. The only move he can clank them with is dash attack and that has a really awkward timing and is really impractical altogether. If he has to jump over them to get to you, great. They served their purpose. Blaster against sonic just forces him out of his pure DD game and shuts down grounded down-b approaches. Sonic's dash dance is super scary, so why approach? pewpew
LATER EDIT:
OMFG I JUST FOUND MY LEAST USEFUL TECH YET lol.
I call it the Up Special Canceled Edge Cancelled Dive Kick Cancel
If you b-reverse an up-b on the frame of a dive kick being ledgecancelled, you will pop up an inch and land back on the platform or edge. I assume this works with all ledge cancels but idk.
Use: For when you didn't want to ledge cancel your dive kick and want to experienc the full lag of the move.
Vixen , what is this crawl tech that Saga claims you taught him for better dealing with items? :o
