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3.6 ZSS Discussion

Vixen

~::Fragile::~
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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 Vixen , what is this crawl tech that Saga claims you taught him for better dealing with items? :o
Actually S0ftie banned FoD, Wario Ware, and YS. You could have gone Lylat.
 

Lust for Glory

Smash Cadet
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Lol really? I dont really remember, but if I didnt go Lylat, it was probably because I thought he was familiar enough with Lylat vs Saga that I wouldn feel as safe.

Not to mention it was my first time playing him, so I may have overestimated him.
 

InfinityCollision

Smash Lord
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Jul 9, 2014
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Swat his controller out of his hand every time you knock him offstage.

Seriously though, pick a secondary. Matchup isn't going to get any easier unless you're willing to wait and pray for favorable adjustments. Given that (imo) he has more room to improve in the matchup than you do, things are unlikely to swing your way in the near future.

Also I kinda gave him pointers on the matchup. Oops?

Anyway, uhh... one thing I see is that you could use RAR uair more often. Really good tool, especially against a fastfaller like Wolf.
 
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Vixen

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I am a firm believer that learning a secondary is more of a liability than a boon. Having to learn a second character, get them to a sufficiently high level, and be good at that certain match up I do not think is worth the effort. Certain people have made it work but even players like Axe and Armada had to drop their secondaries to focus 100% on their mains, or even change mains just to stay relevant.

Wolf is an awful match up, but I do not think it's awful to the point of having to rotate off ZSS with something new. I think I should just be so much better vs Wolf that it overcomes the bad match up. I'm overall a better player than most of the wolf players. I'm sure I can do it.

Except I play Melee at a very high level so if I REALLY wanted to win I can probably just try Fox or Marth. I tried Falco but I think 3.5 Wolf actually beats 3.5 Falco. Oksas junked my Falco pretty hard.
 

Player-3

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InfinityCollision

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I'm overall a better player than most of the wolf players.
I agree that you played better overall than Oksas and basically said as much to him after watching the match, but that doesn't necessarily work in your favor like you want it to. He has more room to improve in the matchup, maybe even as a player. From where I'm standing, that doesn't bode well for your success against him if he cleans up his habits and improves in the matchup.

We're approaching a point where dual maining may become a matter of practicality for those who wish to succeed at a high level.

Or maybe 3.6 will make everything sunshine and rainbows, idk.
 

Vixen

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I finally said ****it and played fox and won. I hate everything and feel gross. I meed to train my zss to never ddropa tech chase

Beat neon with zss yay.
 

AdmiralSnackbar

Smash Rookie
Joined
Feb 24, 2015
Messages
13
I picked up D3 for spacies until ZSS has the tools to deal with them.

I was going to drop her completely, but I can't find anyone else I like. Sheik is a great character, but she's so boring.
 

Shokio

Netplay 4 Days
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Jul 31, 2013
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Dallas/College Station, TX
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Ok, I've mentioned this before but after playing thousands of matches at Aftershock, this really is a infuriating issue:

I want my jab reset back. Can we pleeeeeeeaaase significantly reduce the KB on her jab so I can properly jab reset again? The current KB is way to high. On some characters, you can't reset them past 40% because the jab pops them up. I miss the ability to reliably reset after pulling my opponent down with Up-B.

 

Roxas215

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I finally got some videos of my recently picked up zss. I want to make her my main. These are just random netplay matches. (Forgive the paramore on repeat. I didn't know it was playing. I had my speakers on mute lol)

Nothing too fancy or anything since this was like at 3 in the morning and i was kinda just going through the motions. But any tips??

Zss vs Sonic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HT6vYrrxd6g

Zss vs Sonic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkrU2qXFBNY

Zss vs Diddy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rs0rbtT5aYo

Also quick question. Do any of yall have secondaries for spacies?? Idk who to pick up but im tired of loosing to them with zss.
 
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Foo

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I finally got some videos of my recently picked up zss. I want to make her my main. These are just random netplay matches. (Forgive the paramore on repeat. I didn't know it was playing. I had my speakers on mute lol)

Nothing too fancy or anything since this was like at 3 in the morning and i was kinda just going through the motions. But any tips??

Zss vs Sonic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HT6vYrrxd6g

Zss vs Sonic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkrU2qXFBNY

Zss vs Diddy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rs0rbtT5aYo

Also quick question. Do any of yall have secondaries for spacies?? Idk who to pick up but im tired of loosing to them with zss.
Everytime I watch netplay matches my first thought is "man, these guys are terrible" before I realize it's netplay. It's kinda hard to give tips on netplay matches since lag makes it a completely different game imo. Anywho, I have roy for spacies. I think he's one of (if not the) best characters to play against spacies, especially fox.
 

Roxas215

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Everytime I watch netplay matches my first thought is "man, these guys are terrible" before I realize it's netplay. It's kinda hard to give tips on netplay matches since lag makes it a completely different game imo. Anywho, I have roy for spacies. I think he's one of (if not the) best characters to play against spacies, especially fox.
Yea lag sucks. I cant move like i want to. But theres no scene around here so its like all i got lol. There's some really good people on netplay though.

I tried to pick up roy but i just cant get the hang of him.
 

wangston

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I'm really close to dropping her. All of my matches take 5+ mins. I don't get huge combos like I used to with her. I feel like I'm just poking away at my opponent over and over. It's just neutral game city, it feels like I'm playing brawl again. Even people at tourneys are getting exhausted playing against me. I feel like I would rather play Falco/Falcon because they have so much more combo potential and they can rush down opponents.

Is anyone else feeling these way now that we've had months to play 3.5?
 

Foo

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I'm really close to dropping her. All of my matches take 5+ mins. I don't get huge combos like I used to with her. I feel like I'm just poking away at my opponent over and over. It's just neutral game city, it feels like I'm playing brawl again. Even people at tourneys are getting exhausted playing against me. I feel like I would rather play Falco/Falcon because they have so much more combo potential and they can rush down opponents.

Is anyone else feeling these way now that we've had months to play 3.5?
Sounds like you aren't doing her combo game quite optimally. Do you have any recorded matches?
 

InfinityCollision

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The main issue I have with her combo game right now is how straightforward it is to DI. Mix that up a bit and I'd be alright. My issues with her right now lie in neutral (Paralyzer = bootycheeks), recovery (3.5 tethers), and her grab/throw game (duh).

Speaking of which, if her grab doesn't get reverted (still hoping) then dash grab really needs tweaks. Comes out on frame twelve, FAF is ten frames after standing grab, it basically exists only to penalize you for ****ing up a JC grab.
 
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wangston

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Sounds like you aren't doing her combo game quite optimally. Do you have any recorded matches?

I don't think I have any matches up. My combos I do consist of something like, utitl/downtilt, u airX2, end with fair. I feel like I need to be getting more out of dsmash. I'll I get is U-air, f-tilt, tech chase.
 

Foo

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I don't think I have any matches up. My combos I do consist of something like, utitl/downtilt, u airX2, end with fair. I feel like I need to be getting more out of dsmash. I'll I get is U-air, f-tilt, tech chase.
Sounds like you need to use nair a lot more. It's the most important combo tool in her arsenal atm. It leads into fair much more consistently than upair and gives longer strings. You want to generally use upair as a combo starter and then go into a nair string, and make sure to use the backwards part of nair when possible as it gives you a big "headstart" on them and makes for better comboing. Dtilt and uptilt are alright for starting combos, but not ideal (especially uptilt, I don't really like that move as much as everyone else seems to due to it's high endlag), but using upair/nair just before hitting the ground, dair, or reverse bair are much better combo starters. (that's something I've been playing around with a lot, reverse bair actually sends at a really good angle. Also, NEVER ftilt out of dsmash to start combos. Dftilt is a good kill moves out of dsmash if they are on ledge, but that's it. I like delayed nair/upair, dair, delayed reverse bair, or fsmash just to get them off stage.

I'd actually say her combo game is better than falcons save for MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH weaker combo finishing. Falcon doesn't damage rack with combos nearly as well as zss, but that knee bro. Female falcon's have dat knee envy. ZSS has a considerably better combo game than falco though imo.

The main issue I have with her combo game right now is how straightforward it is to DI. Mix that up a bit and I'd be alright. My issues with her right now lie in neutral (Paralyzer = bootycheeks), recovery (3.5 tethers), and her grab/throw game (duh).

Speaking of which, if her grab doesn't get reverted (still hoping) then dash grab really needs tweaks. Comes out on frame twelve, FAF is ten frames after standing grab, it basically exists only to penalize you for ****ing up a JC grab.
Grab never changing I bet. However, I have heard from a totally unreliable source who may have heard from another unreliable source that could have heard from a semi-reliable source that her throws are getting changed, so there's that. But her dash grab is great. It goes so much farther an- oh wait you could just run forward for an extra six frames and jc grab, but then there's boost grab that... doesn't add any noticable distance... hrm. (oh, that reminds me, I saw someone in PM social a long time ago say that zss has sheik's boost grab and I go so mad lol)

So, yeah, always JC grab unless you KNOW you are landing the grab. Boost grab may technically be better for tech chasing than jc grab, but... even if it is, it's so minor that the risk of effing up the tech chase and getting punished harder isn't worth it.

She actually has a lot of "mixup" in her combo game now, it's just really really tricky to do right with lots of questionable options. ZSS combo game is so weird because she has two good options and then like 8 VERY SLIGTHLY worse options that have very similar but different properties. I mean, every move has pretty much one correct DI for each character, but there are very few moves that aren't like that.

Blaster is pretty good though. It's the only thing that lets her stand a chance in some matchups, like against sonic or MK. It is also an extremely good counterprojectile against characters like samus, snake, wolf, mario, etc. It clanks pretty much everything, including charged blaster.
 
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InfinityCollision

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oh, that reminds me, I saw someone in PM social a long time ago say that zss has sheik's boost grab and I go so mad lol
I remember that lol. I was so baffled that I couldn't even say anything.

She actually has a lot of "mixup" in her combo game now, it's just really really tricky to do right with lots of questionable options.
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.

Blaster is pretty good though. It's the only thing that lets her stand a chance in some matchups, like against sonic or MK. It is also an extremely good counterprojectile against characters like samus, snake, wolf, mario, etc. It clanks pretty much everything, including charged blaster.
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.
 
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Foo

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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.
 
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Player-3

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InfinityCollision

Smash Lord
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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.
Dsmash mixups aside, some of this stuff is only questionably a mixup and shouldn't work against an aware opponent just based on positional awareness. I do agree that figuring out a way to get first hit only on up-b would do a lot for her.

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.
This is a relative thing. Even if you're putting out more projectiles, you're probably maintaining a zero-sum situation at best in practice. Paralyzer simply isn't threatening enough. Additionally, neither of the options I presented require you to approach.

Also, mk doesn't really have a way to deal with blaster.
Powershields, jumping. While his short hop is just low enough that he can't hop over it, he's capable enough in the air that it's not the worst situation to be up there for a few frames.

On a slightly different topic, pivot utilt is so good. One of the reasons I'm hoping that the PMDT will fix c-stick attack up/down inputs.
 
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Vixen

~::Fragile::~
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So I think the next big thing ZSS players need to incorporate is pivot aerials. pivot uair is godlike.

Note that I said pivot, not turn around/rar.
 

Vixen

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Why? What's that good for?
Pretty much the same things Falcon uses it for: cover space in front and above her. It's faster than a retreating rar uair and faster than shieldstop aerials. It's super strong vs space animals, and captain falcon for example which happen to be very hard match ups for ZSS.

If you're not quite sure what I'm talking about, watch Hax's Falcon, or watch recent videos by Gravy and Gahtzu. c:
 
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Myst007_teh_newb

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@ Vixen Vixen

Apologies, but I don't fully understand what situations using pivot areials would be most useful against spacies.

I would also imagine that the extra time you get out of the pivot versus shield stopping is negligible in most situations.

Could you go over a couple of specific situations in neutral that become easier when you use pivot aerials?
 

Vixen

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@ Vixen Vixen

Apologies, but I don't fully understand what situations using pivot areials would be most useful against spacies.

I would also imagine that the extra time you get out of the pivot versus shield stopping is negligible in most situations.

Could you go over a couple of specific situations in neutral that become easier when you use pivot aerials?
Well the thing about shield stop uair as an anti-approach is you would have to dash away, start a dash towards the opponent, shield stop, then get the aerial out. Especially against Falco/Wolf that little extra time getting the shield out can lead to problems.

Pivot aerials are the most useful when you're being cornered by a space animal. Retreating to the ledge isn't necessarily the best option, and you don't always have the room to wavedash away, nor the time to do a shield stop. Running to a platform vs a Space animal isn't always the best idea since their priority is in front and above them. It's also very useful vs approaches from above.

I've also been testing retreating Nair vs Peach. I had relative success vs Silly Kyle at Sandstorm with it, but I didn't always space it correctly.


Do you have any advice for the Game and Watch match up? I struggled to beat the GnW I played in bracket and GV7 was kinda bopping me.
 

Myst007_teh_newb

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Well the thing about shield stop uair as an anti-approach is you would have to dash away, start a dash towards the opponent, shield stop, then get the aerial out. Especially against Falco/Wolf that little extra time getting the shield out can lead to problems.

Pivot aerials are the most useful when you're being cornered by a space animal. Retreating to the ledge isn't necessarily the best option, and you don't always have the room to wavedash away, nor the time to do a shield stop. Running to a platform vs a Space animal isn't always the best idea since their priority is in front and above them. It's also very useful vs approaches from above.

I've also been testing retreating Nair vs Peach. I had relative success vs Silly Kyle at Sandstorm with it, but I didn't always space it correctly.


Do you have any advice for the Game and Watch match up? I struggled to beat the GnW I played in bracket and GV7 was kinda bopping me.
Generic GW facts:

Huge disjoints.
Landing hitboxes on dair/uair.
Lingering hitboxes.
Incredible juggle game.
Great GTFO option with up-b.
Gets huge conversions off of stray hit confirms (bacon, up-b OoS, etc).

Incredibly light.
Terrible tech options.
Extremely telegraphed recovery.
No good option to get to the ground (up-b gets you out of the combo, but it doesn't get you closer to the ground).
Lots of endlag.

This makes for a character that plays an extremely awkward neutral and converts it into a killer punish game. He's gonna do a lot of spaced bairs since they can actually convert into combos. I would typically recommend to approach him from diagonal angles since he has the disjoints to really stuff a lot of horizontal, grounded approaches. You can definitely dash dance bait him still if you're on point. That just sorta requires you to know the hitboxes and the spacing, so it isn't that bad. But I would recommend trying to cut in by sliding off of platforms with uairs and bairs. He can answer with bacon to cut off those angles from you, but keep him honest and mixup how you approach because he doesn't really have moves that cover multiple defensive angles. You can also try to jump in and dair as well. It's just tough because I'm pretty sure that up-b OoS can punish dair if it hits on shield. Dunno. Shooting blaster is a fine option. If the GW is dumb, he'll try to bucket it, which gives you an opening to get in. Test the waters and be liberal with the blaster if you think you can bait out the bucket. If he's just stuffing it with bair, put the gun away. Side-b is always a nice tool to keep in your back pocket. Especially if you b-reverse it, it catches a lot of people off guard. And ZSS gets pretty free punishes off of a clean side-b. If GW is being lazy with his SHFFL aerials, you can shield grab, obviously, but I would imagine that most GW's worth their salt would space themselves outside of punishable range. Just mix up between dash dancing, blastering, platform movement, and dair from above. That's plenty to work with. ZSS has the luxury of not having to commit too hard to aerial approaches since you can always down-b and double jump to reposition yourself if it doesn't look like you've got a good spot for your sliding bair or uair or whatever.

But that's playing to GW's strengths. He has a pretty good neutral game, so you gotta respect a lot of stuff. Once you get that nice utilt or uair hit, you can combo him pretty easy. Since he's floatier, your combos are gonna need to be nair centric and you gotta use uair when you're done doing what you're doing (unless you can fair, obviously). Down-b double jump uair will net you tons of kills off of the top, especially since GW can't really do much with his terrible air drift. All he can really hope to do to defend himself is stick out his dair, but you can beat him to the punch during startup or punish the massive endlag. It's an awkward combo game cause it's not a "true" combo game, but once put into the air, GW has such few options that it's not difficult by any means.

Offstage he's going to bully you out of air space with fair and nair. Let him do it and drop low. Or try to get over him and recover high if that's available to you. GW's tether punish on ZSS is massive with his nair, so you gotta be sneaky to get back on stage.

But your off stage punish game on him is also pretty good. Watch out for the hitbox of up-b. You're gonna find yourself trading dive kicks with that thing way more often than you want to, so be wary. Dsmash is good if you're on a stage where it's awkward for GW to sweetspot (GHZ, WW, YS), but refreshing invincibility and doing ledge drop uairs to cover GW when he recovers low should be fine. If for some reason he wants to recover high, just chase him with down-b jump. It should be a relatively easy uair. Rinse and repeat until he manages to slip through, but recovering high against ZSS is always a good time for ZSS against most of the cast due to her down b and up b.

Your shield pressure is going to be met with a decent amount of up-b OoS, so don't get freaked out. GW is surprisingly slippery on defense. Just make sure you don't do anything too rash. If he catches you, GW has a lot of followups on that up-b. Sometimes it feels crazy free, but I've been told that SDI does wonders.

There aren't enough GW in socal for me to really know too much about the matchup, so I can't really say too much with confidence about this matchup. I play the character on the side and played against Dakpo in doubles at Aftershock. Lol. That's about the extent of what I can say about GW. Nothing earth-shattering.

EDIT: Here's something I wrote a while ago when someone asked me the same thing.

Generic things that make GW good:

Up-b out of shield. Huge lingering disjoints. Vertical combos.

In general, the more horizontal you can force the pace of the match, the better of a time you're going to have. Dtilt is tough to pull off in neutral because GW usually has some sort of hitbox covering himself, but if you dash dance bait things, you can get it off. You really have to respect his lingering hitboxes, though. If he goes off spacing bairs on you or tossing out ftilt or utilt, you gotta stay out of his space and punish the whiff. Which is perfectly doable since ZSS is so mobile.

Something that is very valuable is the blaster, actually. If you can bait him to use the bucket, then it's a free ticket to get in on him. Sure, he can fill it up in 3 bullets to get a kill move, but you can definitely outspace him and run around. It's worth trading giving him a kill move for a projectile that can disrupt his movement.

If you're above him, try to down-b away. ZSS has very few ways to challenge people when she's above, so running away, dive kicking down, and platform canceling is usually the best way to get out of that sticky situation.

GW shield pressure is also a little quirky, so be mindful of that. Uair and dair both have landing hitboxes, so if you're going for a shield grab or some other out of shield option, WAIT for the landing hitboxes to end before you go for the punish.

Comboing GW is not that tough. Nair strings into fair still work, but he's floatier meaning that you have to toss in down-b jumps in order to get that extra bit of oomph to chase him for combos.

A bread and butter combo in the matchup is nair (frontside) -> nair (backside) -> down-b jump -> double jump -> fair (or uair).

You gotta treat your down-b as an extra mid-air jump if you want to extend your combos.

Aside from that, be careful with your shield pressure. GW's up b out of shield will rain on your parade and get you stuck in combos, so either space bair outside of that range or shield/spot dodge if you find yourself going in too far. Because of up-b out of shield, crossing up GW is less valuable than it typically is against other characters.

Hope this was of some help!
 
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Vixen

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Alright, sweet. Thanks a lot for the responses. GlassC really impressed me, and prior to my day 2 bracket matches GV7 and I played a ton of friendlies, and they went pretty badly at first. I figured out that I feel the most comfortable on stages where I can take to the platforms and mix up my attack angles.

Whats your opinion on Dreamland in certain match ups? I'm considering bringing Silly Kyle to DL64 next set we play since Peach struggles to get to the top platform. I'm willing to sacrifice kill power for comfort and space to run around. I got super boxed in on Battlefield and Green Hill Zone at Sandstorm, but won solidly on Arizona Stadium.
 

Player-3

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dreamland is amazing for zss vs characters she can hit offstage, since her recovery is insane you should almost never get gimped and you'll live way longer than normal, plus she's good on big stages where she has space to run

i haven't tried it vs peach but i think it might work pretty well because up b can stop her from just floating back for free

its her best stage vs characters like ganon/falcon though, imo
 
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Foo

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Whats your opinion on Dreamland in certain match ups? I'm considering bringing Silly Kyle to DL64 next set we play since Peach struggles to get to the top platform. I'm willing to sacrifice kill power for comfort and space to run around. I got super boxed in on Battlefield and Green Hill Zone at Sandstorm, but won solidly on Arizona Stadium.
Only if you plan on timing the match out. She will never friggin die on DL64
 

Vixen

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I'm sure you can, but the only way I could see DL64 being a decent pick is if that was your strategy and it worked.
DL is in general a pretty bad pick for Peach. The platforms are taller than on battlefield and there's more room to move around meaning Peach can't catch me on the platforms, especially not the top platform due to her double jump being total jank, and it's much harder for peach to box me in with turnips.

Melee strats, Y0.
 

Myst007_teh_newb

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It's counter-intuitive to take Peach to Dreamland in my opinion, but I think that it's not terrible. You have better stages, though. Distant Planet, Lylat, PS2, and Smashville feel better just thinking about them.

You're going to struggle with getting the kills as you're really going to have to lean in with the one-million-spaced-bairs-until-they-die strategy unless you plan on landing rando fsmashes or dsmashes. Top platform action is aight, though, and you can punish Peach pretty hard by landing dairs on her while she tries to struggle up to top platform. If you feel like you're getting walled out, then it's a good choice to mitigate that. No good peaches in socal, though, so I don't really know what that feels like. I kinda just go in with spaced nairs/ SHFFL uairs against any Peach that is hovering at short hop height and it seem to work well enough. I wouldn't necessarily give up on stages like WarioWare or anything, though.
 

Vixen

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It's counter-intuitive to take Peach to Dreamland in my opinion, but I think that it's not terrible. You have better stages, though. Distant Planet, Lylat, PS2, and Smashville feel better just thinking about them.

You're going to struggle with getting the kills as you're really going to have to lean in with the one-million-spaced-bairs-until-they-die strategy unless you plan on landing rando fsmashes or dsmashes. Top platform action is aight, though, and you can punish Peach pretty hard by landing dairs on her while she tries to struggle up to top platform. If you feel like you're getting walled out, then it's a good choice to mitigate that. No good peaches in socal, though, so I don't really know what that feels like. I kinda just go in with spaced nairs/ SHFFL uairs against any Peach that is hovering at short hop height and it seem to work well enough. I wouldn't necessarily give up on stages like WarioWare or anything, though.
Kyle usually bans WW/Lylat and I think Smashville is ZSS's second worst legal stage, plus I've taken the bair-them-to-death strat to heart. c:
 
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Myst007_teh_newb

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Smashville is a fine stage for most match ups. The fact that the platform goes offstage really helps ZSS vault off of it to continue her strings to death % where you would only get edge guard situations on other stages. Not to mention it has a fairly decent main platform length, which is valuable for obvious reasons. After FD, ZSS generally can't utilize stages like Yoshi's Island, Skyworld, and Norfair optimally from my experience. The platform configurations don't really lend themselves towards ZSS's more movement-heavy strengths and her ability to slide off of platforms, so you have to spend more of the match grounded and playing a dash-dance game on the main platform. I'd be more willing to call any of those stages less valuable for ZSS than Smashville.

But still, all stages have their place. I like Skyworld for spacies sometimes because it messes with their recovery game so much and you can do a lot of running away with the awkward platform layout. And I'm sure Yoshi's and Norfair have their uses against certain playstyles.
 
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