3.6 ZSS Discussion

[Legit]

Crawling under laser might work, I'll make sure to try it, but I can already foresee the opponent just getting lower with their lasers, and if it's Falco that'll basically just stop your crawl, but in both cases its dangerous to let a spacie get free damage on you because of how easily ZSS will die to their respective smash attacks. I hate to say it but I think jumping towards the opponent is the only viable approach, unless like you said your powershielding is on point, which I know mine is not.

Also, you mentioned you can't space nair safely anymore, it's range was reduced and it was given a flatter angle correct? I've seen Oro?! use it a lot in 3.02 and it looks like it used to go much higher behind ZSS than it does now.

Yeah Falco can shoot low enough lasers to where crawling wouldn't work, which in that case you'd have to PS.

As far as nair goes, yes you are correct. It's range was halved and was given a flatter angle which alone makes it a less useful combo tool, but it's even worse against spacies because they hit the ground before you can do any sort of follow up. The hitbox behind ZSS is so miniscule that you should never expect it to hit. It was amazing for combos and spacing in 3.02 (EVERY ZSS player incorporated it in their gameplay), but now it's very underwhelming. Not completely useless, just very... disappointing.

 

[Haku125]

Yea I asked an old ZSS main for tips and he said nair was great for combos, but in 3.5 it's.... it's not hard to land, I just don't see a need for it when you could fair or try to approach with side B.

Speaking of side b, is it viable for approaching? This is outside of the Falco matchup, as his lasers will shut you down on the ground, but as I've played around with ZSS I feel like SH side b has enough range where if you land it it's one of the best combo starters, and if you miss it it's long enough so that you can escape anything the opponent might come at you with, aside from like a wavedash Marth fsmash or some other really long move. I've been trying to pick up ZSS as a secondary and SH side b is my favorite approach because of how safe it is, especially on shield, and unless I fully charge a laser that's the only use I have for that move as an approach anymore.

 

[Haku125]

Yea I asked an old ZSS main for tips and he said nair was great for combos, but in 3.5 it's.... it's not hard to land, I just don't see much of a use for it when you could fair or try to approach with side B.

Speaking of side b, is it viable for approaching? This is outside of the Falco matchup, as his lasers will shut you down on the ground, but as I've played around with ZSS I feel like SH side b has enough range where if you land it it's one of the best combo starters, and if you miss it it's long enough so that you can escape anything the opponent might come at you with, aside from like a Marth fsmash or some other really long move. I've been trying to pick up ZSS as a secondary and SH side b is my favorite approach because of how safe it is, especially on shield, and unless I fully charge a laser that's the only use I have for that move as an approach anymore.

EDIT: Sorry for the double post

 

[Legit]

Yea I asked an old ZSS main for tips and he said nair was great for combos, but in 3.5 it's.... it's not hard to land, I just don't see much of a use for it when you could fair or try to approach with side B.

Speaking of side b, is it viable for approaching? This is outside of the Falco matchup, as his lasers will shut you down on the ground, but as I've played around with ZSS I feel like SH side b has enough range where if you land it it's one of the best combo starters, and if you miss it it's long enough so that you can escape anything the opponent might come at you with, aside from like a Marth fsmash or some other really long move. I've been trying to pick up ZSS as a secondary and SH side b is my favorite approach because of how safe it is, especially on shield, and unless I fully charge a laser that's the only use I have for that move as an approach anymore.

EDIT: Sorry for the double post

Nair's only use now is mid combo. Using it in neutral as a spacing tool though is almost out of the question now.

Side b is more of a poke/spacing/combo-starting tool than an approach option imo. If they read it, it has enough lag to where you can get hard punished for it. I like to use it to start combos out of dsmash. SH away -> side b is actually a great and fairly safe way to space it (full-hop works too if you time your side b correctly). Wavebounce side-b is also a good mindgame, as the reversal of momentum combined with the range of side b can land from deceptively far away and can potentially catch your opponent off-guard.

 

[InfinityCollision]

Despite the initial hype (even I was cautiously optimistic at first), I'm not sure the new grab is a true buff (even disregarding consequent changes to throws and paralyzer) in any matchup. The primary draws of the new grab seem to be its more straightforward usage (applications are more easily understood, so she may feel easier to play and/or more rewarding if you're not familiar with the tether) and its function as a safer/more reliable conversion out of neutral (arguably a buff, but reduced if not negated by the consequent changes). In nearly any other application it's usually no better than or even inferior to the old tether grab even ignoring changes in reward from throws.

ZSS vs Falco is a lot like Falcon vs Falco. Falco wins neutral no matter how you slice it. Good platform movement and powershields/WD OoS help you get in on him and from there it's basically tech chases for days until you can get him offstage. Spacies are hard for ZSS; Falco is potentially the easiest of the 3 at high level (in no small part because of mobility discrepancies) but it's still a bad matchup for her.

Plasma Whip is actually pretty unsafe, so it's not something you can just throw out freely.

 

[SpiderMad]

Oops wrong thread. I'm guessing we're trying to keep this one more for discussing her rather than the design talk on the blaster for the other thread.

 

[Oro?!]

Honest opinion. The combos are still mostly there, but there are quite a few times where Nair is juuuust out of range due to the size nerf, or upB doesn't connect into the meteor offstage. Honestly I am most sad about reverse Fsmash having a scaling BKB/KBG instead of a DI mixup like 3.02.

 

[Shokio]

Yeah, I'm kinda confused on the approach part too.

I'd be fine with the Nair range nerf if:

1) It wasn't already hard to hit shorter characters in 3.02. Now it's even harder.

2) She didn't already have to rely on Nair as 1 of 2 approach options she had.

3) Dash-cancel wasn't taken out, which was her 2nd approach option.

Since the nair is too unreliable to frequently approach with, and she doesn't have the mobility out of lasers like she used to, I'm left asking myself "What am I supposed to do?"

I feel as if ZSS's neutral game now relies solely on literally waiting for your opponent to screw up, or, you have to do pokes with Bair, Dtilt (which is very risky/unsafe), and DSmash (which a good player is not going to run into). I dunno, it's like she doesn't have a defined neutral game anymore. You just kinda gotta throw things out there and hope they connect to get something started.

Would love for us to figure out a new approach game for her, together.

 

[Haku125]

Nair's only use now is mid combo. Using it in neutral as a spacing tool though is almost out of the question now.

Side b is more of a poke/spacing/combo-starting tool than an approach option imo. If they read it, it has enough lag to where you can get hard punished for it. I like to use it to start combos out of dsmash. SH away -> side b is actually a great and fairly safe way to space it (full-hop works too if you time your side b correctly). Wavebounce side-b is also a good mindgame, as the reversal of momentum combined with the range of side b can land from deceptively far away and can potentially catch your opponent off-guard.

Wavebounce side b is something I love to use in neutral, and I honestly don't think ZSS has any real approaches anymore compared to her 3.02 counterpart. Nair is nearly impossible to land on shorter characters, and it's so short that if you use it on shield it's incredibly easy for the opponent to just shield grab you.

The only real approach I think ZSS has anymore is a fully charged laser because it goes far enough that the opponent either has to shield it or jump over, if they shield it then generally I go for a side b on shield for pressure and if they jump I'll go for an up-air because I like the angle it sends the opponent at, or just run up and up-smash into up b to start tech chasing.

And then there's always good old jumping above them and hoping it'll somehow put you in a favorable position to start something.

 

[Foo]

Well, I decided to pick ZSS back up. She's still the only character that feels like an extension of my hand, and I don't want to spend countless hours being frustrated with falcon until I finally get him down. She is still decent, but I still strongly dislike the changes.

Oh well. I like to think I am very good at innovating, so I'm going to try to be the first one to "figure 3.5 ZSS out" and post a guide. I'm going to be experimenting hard on what combos work and ways to make use of her throws. I'll post a guide if I figure her out well enough. I'll also update my ZSS mechanics thread to 3.5 soon.

 

[Shokio]

I never decided to drop her, still been playing her this whole time.

One thing I discovered is that it's better to actually F-Throw than Down-Throw, since they essentially do the exact same thing except F-Throw doesn't have that awkward feeling endlag that D-Throw has.

 

[Foo]

I'm pretty sure dthrow is better for setting up tech chases and placing them on platforms, and fthrow is slightly better for direct follow ups. I'm toying around with backthrow, though. It seems like you could actually get some mileage off of it since people will be DIng away. I managed to hit side-b off it on a floaty once.

On monday, I'm going to spend a ton of time messing around with her throws and jank follow ups on her moves in generals. I think that rising up air to dair to dive kick may actually work against some heavies. Maybe upair is too laggy or maybe I'm not timing dair correctly. I know upair strings are the go-to combo tools. Shffl up air, extend with platforms, then end with nair to fair. uh-oh, back to the lab again. (It's ironic, playing Falcon really inspired me to try jank combos with ZSS because of his weird combos and from watching fatality be jank.)


P.S. Since both are my threads, I'm going to make a small request. Let's try to keep this thread about discussing how to play 3.5 ZSS, and use the petition thread to discuss her design in general (positive or negative).

 

[Zoa]

As a Lucario loyalist since 2.0, you all have my condolences. I definitely understand changes you greatly dislike and removal of certain fun (or unique) things you enjoyed about a character. I hope your character gets the changes you would consider satisfactory.

 

[Haku125]

So I had a nice training session today with ZSS, I played with my friend who's a Falco main, and here's what I've found (Disclaimer: I am not good at this game)

- Falco's lasers are still stupidly good
- ZSS really just has to wait for Falco to approach by waiting on platforms or rolling around
- If you can consistently land the divekick (which I got good at doing), jumping above lasers and coming down on Falco with a divekick is a perfect set up into a grab or up smash
- Up smash chains into SEVERAL MORE up smashes, it requires that the ZSS follow the Falco around to keep up smashing but it takes a while for Falco to reach a high enough percent that he can escape
- Getting Falco onto a platform basically starts the up smash chains for you
- Up throw chains into up smash pretty nicely (My friend played almost all of the characters while we trained and I believe this only works on fast fallers like spacies and Falcon)

*** The stuff I've said above holds true for all of the fast fallers, not just Falco***

Also
- Up smash chains into itself on any character, what changes is how many times (Jigglypuff and Kirby will be able to jump away after the first up smash, while Falco can be trapped in at least 5-6 up smashes before he can jump out of it)
- In the cases of both floaties and spacies, once they can jump out of up smash chains that's when you start using up b to bring them back down, then start tech chases, and if they don't tech then just jab reset and now you're free to do as you please
- Up throw doesn't have much knockback which makes it great for leading into up smash or up b, once you get the opponent into tech chasing it's very easy to look for a grab into up throw to start the up smash chains again

I found myself having a harder time against floaties as ZSS than I did against fast fallers, it's much easier to tech chase fast fallers and up smash chains can become ridiculously long against the likes of Falco and Falcon. Also, down throw pops the opponent in front and a little above you, and if the opponent is a fast faller they'll either fall in front of you and now the tech chase begins, or if they don't tech then you can down smash as soon as you finish down throw and grab them out of the down smash

I really just tried to use her grab and her throws as much as possible, they definitely don't seem to be the setups or combo starters they used to be but there are still some things you can do with them.

 

[Foo]

Alright, after a day of figuring stuff out about ZSS, here is what I come up with. I don't want to write a guide or anything, because my knowledge is incomplete, but here's what I've gathered.

1. She is no longer an aggressive character, she's an advantage based character now. You don't win by applying pressure to your opponent, you punish a mistake, gain stage control and then keep advantage.
2. Up air is the new nair. You can't chain nairs in most cases, but upair actually chains to itself fairly well. Not as well as 3.02 nair, but that's fine. It cannot be used as an approach however, so it's difficult to get a string started.
3. Fully charged blaster is the way to go. The only use I've found for normal blaster is to poke, mess up a charging opponent, or interrupt a charge. While nobody good is going to get hit by fully charged blaster, it DOES force them to avoid it, which helps you approach.
4. Her new grab is underrated. It seems like everyone is missing out on what it can do because they haven't stopped going for direct follow ups. You can't follow up directly on a ZSS throw. EVER. ever (unless bad DI or you are throwing them off stage). If they do DI poorly on upthrow, you can get one or two upairs off of it. If they DI poorly on dthrow, you can hit another grab, or a dash attack. Don't try anything else. If dthrow sends off stage, there are %s against characters where you can fair them. They are purely for positional advantage and tech chases, and they aren't really bad at that. When you get advantage, you have good tools to keep it, so they are fairly useful. It also does significant damage; make sure you pummel! (they aren't GOOD positional throws, but they kinda works)
5. You can combo into grab with the following moves.
Nair, Upair, and sour bair all can combo into grab at the right %s if you have forward momentum as you hit them.
First hit shffled fair hits into grab if they don't CC
Doubledsmash grab works against bad mashing, dsmash first hit shffled fair links into grab too.
Jab grab works IF you hit the jab and they don't CC or DI well. Seems like they have to mess up, but it's impossible to react to a frame 2 jab, so they have to see it coming. Very feasible.
Side-b will carry them straight into your arms at the right %s. Generally better to go for something else, but sometimes they are too low to hit an aerial at a good angle
6. Side b is a respectable spacing tool, you just have to use it on retreat to be safe. I'm currently practicing backwards wavebounce side b spacing. It does great shield damage, but loses to CC.
7. Dair is a pretty good combo starter if used sparingly. Most people don't see it coming.
8. When you have advantage, space bair, a lot. It is strong, has good range, and you can mix it up a lot.
9. Upsmash is a pretty good at comboing fast fallers, and even leads into fair against spacies and falcon. Other than that, it's only useful for mixups when your opponent is above you. Otherwise, shffling up air like you're roy is better.
10. Nair leads to fair at kill %s on most characters.


Also, no offense to haku, but the combos he listed don't really work... at all. Good DI negates them all. Two upsmashes max against good DI because they'll be offstage by then.

 

[wangston]

After watching oro during expo 15 I welcome all the changes to ZSS. It's nice to see what she can do in the hands of a pro.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FeEudzO3df0&list=UUqLYyPcx0tOY5MuOhLvKISw Here is a match with the rest of the vids. She does play a little different but I still think she is fun to watch and Oro?! does a great job using all her new tools.

 

[InfinityCollision]

There's actually a fair bit that ZSS can do even in her new, stripped-down form that Oro uses only sparingly or not at all. His playstyle is very fundamental.

 

[Roche_CL]

I haven't seen anyone do fast fall wih blaster. Have you tried double jump charge laser and fast fall sometimes? I find it kinda safer, since charging it in the ground can be punished sometimes by fast chars that jump over the charged blaster.

 

[Foo]

I haven't seen anyone do fast fall wih blaster. Have you tried double jump charge laser and fast fall sometimes? I find it kinda safer, since charging it in the ground can be punished sometimes by fast chars that jump over the charged blaster.

That sounds really really bad. Double jump FF blaster is awful because you are begging to die. If they read react to it, you are off stage with no jumps. RIP. Full hop ff blaster is a thing, but not that strong. It's still better to dash back, short hop, b reverse blaster. Now you can drift back while doing it too. Best use of fast fall blaster is off of spawn pad, or off platforms imo.

 

[Roche_CL]

Obviously you don't have to do it if you have your opponent close to you. Its really hard to react if you do it far away, by the time they realize and start approaching, they will get hit by it or have to block.
It's just another option, you could also jump backwards to extend the distance.
If you are against supah fast chars like falcon or fox, you would have to be more careful.
Just give it a try -.-

 

[Shokio]

So people can actually DI ZSS's down throw in such a way that they don't touch the ground at all. They'll be in the air, right above the ground, meaning, no tech chase as well as no aerial follow-up (cause of how far they're sent + the endlag). They can DI it to where they're out of hitstun and ready to combo breaker you without touching the ground. Now of course this can be done to every character, but with ZSS the ability to do this starts at much, much lower percents.

I honestly don't remember the exact percents, but there were times where I would Dthrow someone at like 15% and I couldn't even get a tech out of it, which is what the grab is supposed to do. You have to put in the work to get a follow-up out of a tech chase throw, it's not free. The problem is, is that the grab does everything in it's power to HINDER you from doing so, while others characters' throws AID the player in getting the tech chase by having low end lag and appropriate trajectories.

Like I said before, the grabs are very dysfunctional. They work kinda well on the likes of fast-fallers like the spacies and Falcon, but that's pretty much it. For everyone else, they're just awkward to useless. The Down Throw needs to be tweaked in order to be an appropriate tech chase throw.

And I don't think anyone's asked this question before, so if someone in the Dev Team can answer this then that would be great:

Was her DI mixup intentionally removed? Or was is just a byproduct of her development? If it was intentionally removed, what was the reasoning behind it?

Up-Throw throwing behind her like it did in 3.0, or as Player-3 recommended, adjusting her BThrow so that it's a Shiek-esque mixup would be great and fix the issue of not being able to combo off of throws anymore. (Down throw combos if they DI in, but again, there's no reason to ever DI in against her grabs since the mixup is gone.)

 

[Player-3]

uthrow onto platforms > usmash is godlike since usmash is actually a move now

 

[Stryker]

After watching oro during expo 15 I welcome all the changes to ZSS. It's nice to see what she can do in the hands of a pro.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FeEudzO3df0&list=UUqLYyPcx0tOY5MuOhLvKISw Here is a match with the rest of the vids. She does play a little different but I still think she is fun to watch and Oro?! does a great job using all her new tools.

Honestly, I'm subbed to this channel and I hardly watched any of this. I watched grands and a bit of winners finals, but in both sets I was watching the other character more than I was watching the ZSS.
It's heartbreaking how much more lame she is to watch now. I used to look forward to seeing high level zss play, but now... meh... spaced bairs.

 

[Shokio]

uthrow onto platforms > usmash is godlike since usmash is actually a move now

Up Throw always, well, threw upward lol. That has nothing to do with her new throw if that's what you were implying.

 

[Player-3]

the point was usmashing people on platforms is rly good now

 

[Shokio]

Yeah, UpSmash is an actual move now. It's lovely.

 

[Yeroc]

So people can actually DI ZSS's down throw in such a way that they don't touch the ground at all. They'll be in the air, right above the ground, meaning, no tech chase as well as no aerial follow-up (cause of how far they're sent + the endlag). They can DI it to where they're out of hitstun and ready to combo breaker you without touching the ground. Now of course this can be done to every character, but with ZSS the ability to do this starts at much, much lower percents.

Like I said before, the grabs are very dysfunctional. They work kinda well on the likes of fast-fallers like the spacies and Falcon, but that's pretty much it. For everyone else, they're just awkward to useless. The Down Throw needs to be tweaked in order to be an appropriate tech chase throw.

Can you be more specific with this complaint? In my dev testing, I typically found that against almost all the cast at almost all percents and almost all possible DI angles there existed at least one reliable follow-up. Maybe not always the same one that you might be looking for, but something. If you're correct, having a list of characters at specific percents and DIs for which no response is possible would be useful in figuring out if we've done anything wrong. That shouldn't happen.

 

[Shokio]

Can you be more specific with this complaint? In my dev testing, I typically found that against almost all the cast at almost all percents and almost all possible DI angles there existed at least one reliable follow-up. Maybe not always the same one that you might be looking for, but something. If you're correct, having a list of characters at specific percents and DIs for which no response is possible would be useful in figuring out if we've done anything wrong. That shouldn't happen.

I'll grab somebody to help me and actually go through all the characters, thanks.

 

[Shokio]

Can you be more specific with this complaint? In my dev testing, I typically found that against almost all the cast at almost all percents and almost all possible DI angles there existed at least one reliable follow-up. Maybe not always the same one that you might be looking for, but something. If you're correct, having a list of characters at specific percents and DIs for which no response is possible would be useful in figuring out if we've done anything wrong. That shouldn't happen.

Did some extensive testing with her throws on pretty much the whole roster. I went into training mode and turned on the hitstun data and frame-advanced everything for this research:

As stated before, the grabs work fine on light fast-fallers, and actually very well on light-weights since her new weight dependency greatly speeds up the animations and endlag. So even if a lightweight can DI to where they don't get forced into touching the ground, ZSS can still actually get an aerial follow-up since she's able to run out of the throw as soon as they're thrown.

With Mario, he can actually DI to where he won't hit the ground and be out of hitstun starting at around 27%-30%. Now, a follow-up would normally be possible even still, IF it weren't for the endlag on the down throw cutting down on precious frames she would need in order to reach him in time. ROB, Lucario, Ness, Shiek, Marth, Icy's, can do this as well at similar percents.

As I said before, floaties can do a similar thing vs. all tech chase throws but it starts earlier with ZSS. Peach, Zelda, Icy's, Mewtwo, Luigi, etc. Starting at roughly 17%, Zelda can get out of hitstun before reaching the ground and intercept ZSS's approach with a lightning kick.

It's worse with heavy-weights. The likes of Rob, Zard, Wario, Yoshi, Ganon, Bowser, DDD, DK, Snake ,etc, they can actually get out of hitstun from her Up-Throw before or just-as she's even done with the animation. Since knockback is directly related to hitstun, by the time they're at high enough percents to where you can get out of the Up-Throw animation before they get out of hitstun, they're also being thrown too high up and far away in the first place. So essentially, Up-Throw vs. heavier characters is virtually a pretty useless move, at ANY percents.

With down-throw, they get teched at lower percents, but starting at 50%+ they can DI to where they don't hit the ground. Which would still be fine......if ZSS was able to move out of her throw fast enough to get a follow-up anyway, but she's not. For instance, the same can be said for Shiek, they can DI to where they don't tech at higher percents, but Shiek can slap them instantly out of the down throw.

And just in-general, the endlags on both throws just feel plain AWKWARD. Even if there was follow-ups on everybody at 200%, I would still ask for a tweak because it simply doesn't FEEL good to throw with ZSS. I made Oracle play ZSS for just 2 minutes and he even stated that they feel weird, regardless of whether he thought the throw angles are good or not. He also said that up-throw "throws them pretty far out".

My suggestion:

1) Reduce the endlag of down throw by 2-3 frames. (from the current 5)
2) Reduce the endlag of up throw by 3-4 frames. (from the current 7)
3) Slightly reduce the KBG for Up-Throw. It throws people too far even at low-mid percents.
4) Restore Up-Throw as a DI mixup for Down-Throw. This way, for when players constantly DI out of the tech and aerial follow-up (it would still be possible even with the frame reduction, it'd just be not as often), then you can employ the mixup to get a combo. 100-120 degrees on the Up-Throw should serve as a proper mixup. Down throw was changed from 82 degrees to 60 in 3.5, so the angle of Up-Throw will have to be adjusted accordingly. And of course this would solve the problem of people being able to use the same DI for both throws.

What do you think?

 

[Stryker]

**snip**

Thank you for all your hard work. I get the feeling that even zss players who will never read these boards may end up owing you a favor for that post. )

 

[shapular]

I've been working on my ZSS a bit recently. I'm slowly getting better. From what I can tell, ZSS has two kill moves and can't kill off the top at all. Is that right? Right now my main kill setups are dsmash to fsmash/bair (I'm pretty sure fsmash is better always but I automatically go into bair sometimes because I'm used to Brawl ZSS), side B to bair (really hard on netplay), and hard read to fsmash/bair. Am I missing anything? It'd be cool if down B still killed. Why did they nerf that move anyway? Currently I have no idea what to do out of grab. Any good throw combos?

 

[LonVoen]

You can kill off top with uair while juggling. Get high enough to do so via full hop -> down-B -> double jump -> uair.

Also don't forget to go deep. She's pretty good at going out for edge-guarding thanks to her huge recovery.

(don't know if this actually works) What about full hop uair -> (down b -> immediate jump OR just jump) -> dair -> uair?
Also her down-B dive comes out very fast and does good knockback. I'm betting there are some setups into that.

 

[Shokio]

I've been working on my ZSS a bit recently. I'm slowly getting better. From what I can tell, ZSS has two kill moves and can't kill off the top at all. Is that right? Right now my main kill setups are dsmash to fsmash/bair (I'm pretty sure fsmash is better always but I automatically go into bair sometimes because I'm used to Brawl ZSS), side B to bair (really hard on netplay), and hard read to fsmash/bair. Am I missing anything? It'd be cool if down B still killed. Why did they nerf that move anyway? Currently I have no idea what to do out of grab. Any good throw combos?

You are correct. Her Up-Air CAN kill off the top, it's just that they have to be at very high percents and the move no longer sends people flying at a more 90 degree angle. It sends them at a 45 degree angle now, and its extremely easy to DI, so people can just DI to fly horizontally if they're high up in the air to avoid the aerial kill. It's not longer a kill move really, the Back Room changed it into a mediocre combo tool now. It's great at lower percents, but starts becoming an ill-suited option for 60%+ depending on the weight and floatiness of the character.

Yes, her primary kill moves are Bair and FSmash, particularly Bair. But, Down B actually does still kill. Hit A out of the flip jump and she'll do a divekick. In 3.5, they actually buffed the KB of that move making it a much more viable kill option. Down B out of Dair is a true combo if they DI to the left or right, and you can also use it to intercept recovering foes.

She can't do much with her new grab game, unfortunately, which is a major issue we've been discussing this whole time ever sine 3.5 released. Down Throw is now a "tech chase" throw, but it's a pretty crappy one TBH. Never use Up-Throw UNLESS there's a platform above you that you want to throw them on. Other than that the throw is virtually useless.

 

[Player-3]

Finally able to pinpoint what i dislike about 3.5 zss

My neutral is now *entirely* dash dance


:/

 

[Shokio]

Finally able to pinpoint what i dislike about 3.5 zss

My neutral is now *entirely* dash dance


:/

That's kinda one thing we've been trying to convey this whole time bruh lol. Outside of the dash cancel, Nair was her approach option but now that the range of it has been severely decreased she no longer has an approach tool.

Also, is anybody from the Dev Team going to respond to my data or.......? I posted that and this thread just kinda died lol. Up-Throw is useless, pls fix. Silly endlag is silly. Give DI mixup back pls.

 

[Player-3]

yea but u kept saying paragraphs i dont got the attention span to read that many words man

 

[ThreeSided]

So I've been noticing lately that Nair OOS is a thing. It's not universal - they have to be in front of you and they have to be a certain distance, but it's a distance your grab can't always reach, so it definitely seems to net useful. I've yet to try converting out of it though, but I do believe it may be possible at the right percents.

 

[Stryker]

Days pass as spiderwebs and dust collect.

Also, is anybody from the Dev Team going to respond to my data or.......? I posted that and this thread just kinda died lol. Up-Throw is useless, pls fix. Silly endlag is silly. Give DI mixup back pls.

 

[chrome12345]

Maybe I'm stating something obvious, but ZSS's nair is more nuanced than people give it credit for. I read some people saying the hitbox hits behind her; actually, the hit box changes given they way you di when you use the move. If you nair as you are moving forward, it hits behind you. If you nair, then fade back, the hitbox is in front of you. I think this last option is of use to space people out.


Also, i think dair is a solid edgeguard against fox and falco's side b when they try to sweet spot of the edge.

 

[Legit]

Maybe I'm stating something obvious, but ZSS's nair is more nuanced than people give it credit for. I read some people saying the hitbox hits behind her; actually, the hit box changes given they way you di when you use the move. If you nair as you are moving forward, it hits behind you. If you nair, then fade back, the hitbox is in front of you. I think this last option is of use to space people out.


Also, i think dair is a solid edgeguard against fox and falco's side b when they try to sweet spot of the edge.

Very obvious lol. Nair's hitbox is the same regardless of whether you are moving forward or backward though. There is always a hitbox behind her.

Dair is decent against fox, but if you dair a falco side b, you get spiked. Depending on the stage, that could mean a death.

Edit: Nvm, thought you were referring to her divekick, lol. I don't see any reason to dair a fox/falco side b when dsmash is a lot safer, much easier to time, and much more rewarding.