3.6 ZSS Discussion

[The_NZA]

I don't know how many have seen it yet but here is a GF set of DJ nintendo vs Frozen. Ike vs Zss. http://youtu.be/ljl-lAjxgH0?t=9m32s

And for those who haven't seen it, here's DJ Nintendo v. Numerics for comparison:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HcGrKPeqpQ#t=1531

TKbreezy and Colors on commentary.

EDIT:

Looking back at this match, it looks like Numerics played pretty scared . Can't blame him--i don't htink he's played many people on DJ Nintendo's level at a big tournie.

 

[Ouroboro]

Leaveing for the samus board, ttyl, gtg, rip zss.

 

[wangston]

Messed around a bit on debug mode and found a few good things. There are guaranteed follow ups on throws you just have to know %. Also on a number of characters you can use up throw to chain grab at 0% for a throw or two, you have to jump cancel grab.

 

[_Chrome]

And for those who haven't seen it, here's DJ Nintendo v. Numerics for comparison:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HcGrKPeqpQ#t=1531

TKbreezy and Colors on commentary.

EDIT:

Looking back at this match, it looks like Numerics played pretty scared . Can't blame him--i don't htink he's played many people on DJ Nintendo's level at a big tournie.

3.02 ZSS looks like the ZSS we loved to play as! I mean the blaster was broken, but I feel like for 3.5 all we needed to change was that, the recovery nerfs and give us better hitboxes on the fair and upsmash (bc those were ****). RIP ZSS

 

[Esper]

If your opponents flubs DI on d-throw, it comboes into fair...

 

[Legit]

If your opponents flubs DI on d-throw, it comboes into fair...

We're well aware, but the fact is that if you know that ZSS's uthrow and dthrow are no longer a DI mixup, you can simply hold down and away to get out of both.

 

[Shokio]

If your opponents flubs DI on d-throw, it comboes into fair...

Yes, but why would they???

There's literally no reason to ever DI toward ZSS. As Legit stated, her up-throw no longer is a DI mixup with down-throw. You either have to be ******** or have a moment of slow reaction time in order to actually get combo'd out of ZSS's down throw.

 

[JANKX]

If your opponents flubs DI on d-throw, it comboes into fair...

It looks like Frozen was trying to use a d-throw to fair kill setup here, but DJ Nintendo DI'd towards the stage, in which case Frozen should have reacted accordingly (immediate SH fair nair or a delayed bair).

 

[Legit]

It looks like Frozen was trying to use a d-throw to fair kill setup here, but DJ Nintendo DI'd towards the stage, in which case Frozen should have reacted accordingly (immediate SH fair or a delayed bair).

Even if DJ Nintendo DI'd away from stage, there was no way in hell Frozen could have gotten a fair off, or anything for that matter.

 

[Shokio]

I'm really amazed that some people REALLY don't see just how bad ZSS's throws are, particularly the down throw.

This is food for thought: Smash 4 ZSS has better follow-ups off her throws than PM 3.5 ZSS. THINK about that.

And yes, while Smash 4 ZSS is a damn good character, that game has very low hitstun and normals and grabs throw people very far away, making the simplest of set-ups soooo hard to combo with, even at 0%. And yet.......

 

[JANKX]

Even if DJ Nintendo DI'd away from stage, there was no way in hell Frozen could have gotten a fair off, or anything for that matter.

Whoops, I actually meant to say nair, but a bair would have totally KOed in this case.

 

[mimgrim]

grabs throw people very far away.

This is ture... For the E3/Best Buy demo...

Throws were generally fixed in the final, full, version and don't throw nearly as far away and quite a few characters in smash 4 rely on throws for combos.

 

[CzarYoshi]

Oro?! Seems to be doing fine with her, he does play a barebones ZSS so he wasn't affected as much to the changes because of his playstyle. Still good job Oro?!

Most matches: http://www.twitch.tv/windycitysmash/b/591622829
Rest of the set: http://www.twitch.tv/windycitysmash/b/591842373

 

[Stryker]

Oro?! Seems to be doing fine with her, he does play a barebones ZSS so he wasn't affected as much to the changes because of his playstyle. Still good job Oro?!

Most matches: http://www.twitch.tv/windycitysmash/b/591622829
Rest of the set: http://www.twitch.tv/windycitysmash/b/591842373

I watched the Oro?! vs Ripple match. That's probably the last ZSS match I'll go out of my way to watch.
It's painful to see oro?! do perfect followups after throws and just not have them amount to anything at all.
During the second game, oro?! goes for a dthrow>WD>Dsmash and ripples is like "Nope shields and back to Neutral game"

Overall, watching ZSS is just less interesting now. To be honest, I'm was subbed to Windy City to watch Oro play, but I'm starting to rethink that. She just isn't the High Octane Action Lady that i used to love watching so much. It used to be that she was everywhere, attack from all angles, and if you got caught you didn't know what way a ZSS would fling you with her moves. Now she's just.. bland.

 

[Ripple]

I don't even find it fun to fight her anymore.

 

[ph00tbag]

Taking away everything that makes a character remotely unique will do that.

 

[CzarYoshi]

Yup, she's so boring to watch now, it's so sad.

 

[Thane of Blue Flames]

Yup, she's so boring to watch now, it's so sad.

Leffen's psychotic Uair strings that put Falcon players to shame and Divekick edgeguards strongly disagree.

Check out saltyplayground on Twitch.

 

[JANKX]

It's pretty sad that a lot of people think that 3.5 ZSS is boring. I still have fun playing as her; I think ya'lls trippin'. If anything, I think she's more exciting to play with because her moves which were easily cancelled now require commitment, and nair autocombos are a thing of the past. Now that her burst mobility options are gone, she should have more even matchups with slower characters, and her buffs should help her out with previously unfavorable matchups.

If you think she's weak now, try dive kick as an option for kills, maximize your gimp game which is augmented by a much safer grab, and really just learn how to optimize your flow with the new changes. If you think she's boring, learn to integrate turnaround-b, b-reversal, wavebouncing, and ledge-cancelled dive kicks which will help your mobility and positional advantage.

 

[Massive]

Adapt or die, I guess.
Either way I still think ZSS is fun.
Even though she's changed a bit I feel like she's actually more viable now than ever. Gimps and ledgeguards are the new vogue and she has a good enough arsenal and still-effective recovery to easily handle that meta.

 

[Legit]

I still don't understand how 3.5 ZSS can be considered more exciting/fun when she is literally a shell of her 3.02 self.

If Diddy couldn't use bananas at all anymore, would he still be fun for Diddy mains? Would he be more exciting? Hell no.
If Mewtwo couldn't teleport, would he still fun and exciting? Nope.
If Lucario wasnt UMvC3?
If spacies couldn't cancel shine?
If Pikachu couldn't QA/QAC?
....
...
..
.

Now you're probably thinking "Well why would they do that? It would destroy the character."

Exactly.

 

[Foo]

Yeah, the only thing she was given that's new is her grab. It's not bad, but she has arguably the worst throws in the entire game atm. Not to mention, a standard grab is far from fun and interesting. It's the most generic and standard characteristic across characters.

Also, with the exception of wavebouncing (requires the hardest of reads) all those techs you mentioned were basically fundamental for ZSS. If you weren't b-reversing, turning on side-b, and ledge canceling dive kicks, you were doing it wrong.

Imagine this.

One day, the PMDT decides that a better recovery would fit falcons character because he is named after a bird. They gave him a better recovery, but realized that made his ledguarding game obscenely overpowered. They tried making his throws his nair not combo into knee or grab to prevent him getting opponents off stage as easily, but that wasn't enough. Next, they removed his knee sweetspot to force him to gimp, and made his downair hit diagonally upwards. This worked. The also made his tilts and smashes better to compensate.

Then they announce that they gave falcon a better recovery to better suit his character, but nerfed his downair too keep his gimp game from being too good. They also say they removed nair comboing well at all %s because it was against their design goals, and they removed knee sweetspot because killing at such a low% with such a fast, safe move is "unsmashlike." When people complain emphatically, people who never played falcon before comment that he's still a good character to refute them.

You may be thinking: "That's absurd and would never happen!" Well, that's what I thought until it happened to my character. If ZSS was a melee high tier, we would never have had this problem.

 

[mimgrim]

Quick nitpick but many of the Pikachu mains are pretty upset over the change to QAC and have even been leaving the character because of the change to it. :L

 

[Erik Aldereguia]

Quick nitpick but many of the Pikachu mains are pretty upset over the change to QAC and have even been leaving the character because of the change to it. :L

yeah i saw that. i dunno how i feel about that one. its kind of a major nerf, but at the same time, i can understand it. i dont know i feel like they shoulda kept the cancel but limit options out of it. not sure how they could do that. but either way, that nerf doesnt really affect the play style of pika. it just limits the options at long range. it still makes me laugh that k9 left mk after the patch. some ness mains are leaving ness. imo, ness was one of few who was least affected by the patch. sure, pkf doesnt activate on shield, but if a ness hit someone's shield, they werent gonna go in anyway. it didnt affect playstyle at all imo. bringing me back on topic to the main point that zss playstyle is pretty much completely changed. i have played a lot more, and since my earlier statements, i have started to ease into the changes.
THAT SAID, i still agree that her playstyle has completely changed, and it doesnt feel like the same character. i suppose that has been said enough so i wont bother elaborating, but i will say this. 3.5 zss is not bad, but imo, doesnt make much sense.
as it is now, zss is basically a character that runs around with high mobility and pokes at the enemy character with an assortment of ok moves that dont really link into anything. right now for damage i've been getting most of my mileage from up-air strings, which arent even free. you can also argue she has good tech chase potential. sure. but tech chase to what? if you get the read, you get a d smash and can probably knock them off stage. the thing is, 3.5 zss does not gain as much from knocking them offstage as other characters. her projectile is not effective for gimping, and her aerials do not cover a huge amount of space nor do they have all that high priority bar nair, which the hitbox is not that great. my point is that going out to edgeguard is extremely risky. so as it is now, her playstyle (from my experience) sort of revolves around poking and running around until you have enough % and can get a d-smash read or can land a raw bair. it is a completely viable strategy and requires a fair amount of skill to pull off effectively and consitently, but its really not as much fun as her old self. this is not to say i dont find new zss fun now that i have started to ease into the changes, but i still prefer the old combo machine with a clear weakness.
this is my own opinion formed from my experience, which is limited i admit.

 

[Foo]

Quick nitpick but many of the Pikachu mains are pretty upset over the change to QAC and have even been leaving the character because of the change to it. :L

Yeah, but they didn't remove it entirely. You could argue that the went too far with that change and I'm not sure I'd disagree, but not as far as they went with ZSS. It'd be like ZSS being able to dash cancel laser 8 frames after shooting it.

 

[Legit]

Quick nitpick but many of the Pikachu mains are pretty upset over the change to QAC and have even been leaving the character because of the change to it. :L

Lol. That's a pretty dang big nerf to Pika, but leaving the character over it? Not only did QAC not get removed, but that was literally the only change. Does Pikachu have god awful throws due to the QAC change? Did he get a tether grab for no reason? Naw. He still fundamentally plays like the same character.

 

[Yeroc]

I don't normally do this, and I'm not saying it's definitely going to happen, but would you guys feel a bit less salty about the dash cancel removal if I mentioned we've been toying with the idea of removing other janky cancels like Wolf's AD cancel too?

 

[InfinityCollision]

If anything I'd be more salty, that would mean yet more mechanics unnecessarily axed. Doesn't matter if it's someone I play regularly or not, at some point things need to be left well enough alone and the "trimming the fat/de-jank" crusade has already gone quite far enough. Jank, like "polarizing", is a word that's seen too much use lately. Unique mechanics does not automatically equate to bad design; complete removal of a mechanic should be a last resort option. The power creep in previous updates was a big problem and it's good that you've addressed that, but blindly cutting out as much as possible isn't a good idea either.

Subtle changes. Subtle. Major design changes to a character will alienate portions of its playerbase, as I'd hope you've come to understand by now. Major design changes to many characters risks pushing people away from the game as a whole. PM's diversity is critical to its survival as a game. Unique elements should be embraced whenever reasonably possible, not viewed skeptically with a hatchet in hand. You need to step back and reassess what you've already done rather than press forward without regard for the potential consequences. That this is even a point of discussion right now is alarming.

 

[mimgrim]

Lol. That's a pretty dang big nerf to Pika, but leaving the character over it? Not only did QAC not get removed, but that was literally the only change. Does Pikachu have god awful throws due to the QAC change? Did he get a tether grab for no reason? Naw. He still fundamentally plays like the same character.

Pika mains would have rather seen the technique taken out completely instead of how it was changed.

 

[Legit]

Pika mains would have rather seen the technique taken out completely instead of how it was changed.

Highly doubt that lol.

I don't normally do this, and I'm not saying it's definitely going to happen, but would you guys feel a bit less salty about the dash cancel removal if I mentioned we've been toying with the idea of removing other janky cancels like Wolf's AD cancel too?

Nothing is safe if it isn't Melee, is it? And yes I would still be salty. Regardless of what is done to other characters, my main comes no closer to playing like the character I'd come to love playing.

 

[mimgrim]

Highly doubt that lol.

http://smashboards.com/threads/3-5-pika-discussion-time.363709/page-3#post-17985361

It was pretty much turned from an intuitive mechanic that had uses into something completely gimmicky with no real purpose outside of flash.

 

[Stryker]

I don't normally do this, and I'm not saying it's definitely going to happen, but would you guys feel a bit less salty about the dash cancel removal if I mentioned we've been toying with the idea of removing other janky cancels like Wolf's AD cancel too?

"Would you guys be less salty about how we gutted your characters unique and interesting mechanics if we took away other characters unique and interesting mechanics instead of tuning them correctly?"

I think there was a point around here you might be missing. You should, you know, look around for that.

 

[Foo]

I don't normally do this, and I'm not saying it's definitely going to happen, but would you guys feel a bit less salty about the dash cancel removal if I mentioned we've been toying with the idea of removing other janky cancels like Wolf's AD cancel too?

Yeah, this war on "Jank" has gone on far enough. At this point "Jank," "Gimmicky" and "Polarizing" are just buzzwords thrown around that basically mean "not melee."

"We decided to remove the AD cancel on Wolf's laser because we felt that it was a very *not melee* tool that players couldn't adjust to. It really *not melee*d his kit, and that is against our design goals. Wolf was talked about as a very *not melee* character, so we decided to tone that down."

I mean, there's a reason I switched to melee characters like Roy and Falcon. Their jankness was in melee, so it's pretty much safe. I mean, think about it. How fing gimmicky is shine? How polarizing is falcons knee? How jank is peaches float? How well does Marth's grab "fit his character?" Melee top tiers almost all had something totally ******** and busted about them, and that's WHY they were top tiers, and that's why they are cool.

If we want to throw around jank, gimmicky and polarizing, then let's talk about how.

Shine, Knee, Float, Jiggles bair spacing, shiek ftilt, marth grab, roy upair, luigi's wave dash and missiles are all three. Those are never getting "fixed" though because melee. You know why melee was good? Because those things existed. While it's fine to have run of the mill and by the books basic characters, it's great to have polarized, jank and gimmicky characters too, as long as it isn't OP or toxic. I mean, Fox is probably the most jank, polarizing and gimmicky character to ever be in a smash game.

I don't even play Wolf, but please don't flat out remove AD cancel. Cool things are cool, and they make the game interesting. I don't want to play PM if every non-melee character is going to be generic because whatever makes them cool wasn't a melee mechanic.

So, in conclusion, it would make me even MORE salty. To the point where I would write a giant essay in GD. As of right now, ZSS is kind of an isolated incident. Even if ZSS doesn't get changed, my making as much noise about this as possible is partially an attempt to make the PMDT think "Wow, that didn't go over well, let's not overhaul weird but balanced characters."

 

[mimgrim]

How in the world is Sheik's Ftilt jank/gimmicky/polarizing exactly? The move is easy to CC, has enough lag to be punishable if thrown around mindlessly, and stuff. The actually jank she had in Melee, Dthrow, was gotten rid of in PM (Needles are also worse in PM from Melee, though still a really great projectile nonetheless).

Also why Roy's Uair as an example instead of Dtilt? Lol.

/nitpicking

 

[Foo]

How in the world is Sheik's Ftilt jank/gimmicky/polarizing exactly? The move is easy to CC, has enough lag to be punishable if thrown around mindlessly, and stuff. The actually jank she had in Melee, Dthrow, was gotten rid of in PM (Needles are also worse in PM from Melee, though still a really great projectile nonetheless).

Also why Roy's Uair as an example instead of Dtilt? Lol.

/nitpicking

Eh, maybe not sheik ftilt but roy up air totally is. I love it, but it's really gimmicky. It combos into itself almost indefinitely in some situations, covers tons of range, is very safe and spammable, and combos into GRAB against the faster falling portion of the cast. Also, Fsmash, backair, etc. Downtilt's really good, but I would say up air is much more gimmicky, jank, and polarizing. All because it has next to no knockback lol.

But yeah, nitpicking. That post completely ignored the point I made =/








(acknowledging you did something doesn't make it ok /potshot)

 

[Thane of Blue Flames]

I don't normally do this, and I'm not saying it's definitely going to happen, but would you guys feel a bit less salty about the dash cancel removal if I mentioned we've been toying with the idea of removing other janky cancels like Wolf's AD cancel too?

... Could you not?!

 

[InfinityCollision]

But then I can be happy because all your toys are gone too

Oh wait, that's not how this works because I'm not a giant ****ing c**tnugget who derives pleasure from someone else's unhappiness.

Everything about that post bothers me, argh. Why is such a thing even on the table right now? Why would taking everyone else's toys away make taking ours away any more okay? Has nothing we've said made any impact whatsoever? Reviewing and refining the changes already made should be the priority right now, not doing even more damage.

edit: whoops, guess that bypasses the profanity filter lmao. Self-filtered.

 

[Thane of Blue Flames]

I'm sorry, does the PMDT really hate its core playerbase that much? Do you realize that the flavor and uniqueness inherent to this game is a lot of what draws us in, yes? Is our enjoyment of this game that much inferior to the enjoyment of potential melee players?!

 

[Player-3]

I don't normally do this, and I'm not saying it's definitely going to happen, but would you guys feel a bit less salty about the dash cancel removal if I mentioned we've been toying with the idea of removing other janky cancels like Wolf's AD cancel too?

y are u trying to turn the game into melee with more characters that are slightly altered versions of melee characters

 

[Shokio]

Seems like this truly is Project Melee, where the mission is to strip the Brawl characters of all their uniqueness and individual mechanics, while keeping 1-frame jump-cancel shines, throws into kill confirms at any percent, float-cancels, spammable trans lasers that completely neutralize neutral games of other chars, Dair into Dair auto-combos, etc.