BBR Weekly Character Discussion #32: Samus

[Marc]

 

[Red Arremer]

Pic suggestions:
http://transfuse.deviantart.com/gallery/#/dpvnn5
or
http://transfuse.deviantart.com/gallery/#/dq8c9o

That said.
Samus is a solid low tier. She has a lot of problems, but she has a few strengths that make her stand above bottom tier in any way.

To start off with her strengths:
First of all is her survivability. She is heavy, floaty and has many tools to recover - bomb jump, ZAir tether and of course her UpB. A Samus with good DI can survive almost as long as a Snake.
Second, she has a very good projectile game. Two types of missiles, charge shot (which can be really annoying if used right), and to an extent her bombs. I also would like to mention her ZAir here, which is the main argument to not put her in bottom tier. It keeps people away and makes Samus keep her distance, which is where she excels at pretty much. It can also be used to gimp, but that can be a bit hard to pull off.

Basically, Samus is a character who tries to stay away very far from their enemy, spam projectiles and get in as soon as the opponent is at kill %. For keeping her distance, she has a rather good arsenal, not only ZAir, but also moves like DSmash, FTilt or UTilt. NAir works well at times, too. She also can juggle quite nicely with her UAir.

That all sounds like a plan, but unfortunately, it will end at the kill %. Because pretty much literally, Samus can't kill. She has to rely on the other's mistakes to land her kill moves (DTilt, BAir, FSmash) because they are so slow and/or have so awkward hitboxes. They also don't have that much knockback, so she has to rack up a ton of damage first. And this is what breaks Samus down so badly. She fares rather well until it goes to kill %.

Also, something she shares with Zero Suit Samus: Her grab game plainly sucks. She has an awful grab with her grapple beam, and her throws blow. There's almost always better options for her to do instead of grab. She also doesn't handle shield pressure well and has no good OoS options.

Apparently, though Samus seems to do very well on the ledge. Her ledge game definitely might have some potential, so I wouldn't count out Samus from rising on the tier list.

Speaking of the tier list, she seems perfectly fine where she is now.

Regarding matchups, Samus gets beaten by all characters who have easy time dealing with her projectiles (not many) and/or can get easily inside her comfort zone (far more).

 

[[FBC] ESAM]

I basically agree with what Joel said.

Samus is the best zoning character in the game. With Super missiles, homing missiles, beam, and zair, she can comfortably keep a lot of characters out. She has fast moves in her D-tilt and D-smash (You might as well use them since you aren't killing with them fresh till 160% anyway), decent range with D-tilt and F-tilt, good momentum shifting in the air (Bombs) and a good arsenal for option limiting.

Her main problem is killing, and that, IMO, is the only reason she isn't in mid tier.

 

[T-block]

I think she could actually move down, but I don't know the character well enough to say that with confidence.

Isn't up-b a pretty good OoS option?

 

[DtJ Hilt]

It is, but it's really risky. It's basically a nerfed Dolphin Slash.

 

[Red Arremer]

What Hilt said. On paper it's good, but it's very risky to use.

 

[Marcbri]

I fail to see how her zoning is the best in the game, A good zoning character is lucario. (It's decent but just not the best in the game)

This character is plain horrible,camping? Powershield, then approach, not like she can grab you. Oh, you got hit with a missile? who cares. His only really good spacing tool is zair, missiles are mostly useless, are easy to powershield and can be destroyed with most moves. Zair is the actual move that can make samus win or go even in some match-ups (Bowser comes to mind). Charged beam sucks, it's too slow to charge and still it's not a big deal if she manages to hit you once or twice with it, it won't change much.

His killing trouble IS an issue, saying it isn't because she can camp is stupid, most characters don't have that much trouble getting in, and even if at first samus has low % combos and she avoids most strings, the opponent ends up racking damage and killing her. Then she has to approach for a kill which make the match even worse and by the time samus manages to get a KO move its likely she'll have died again or she's at high % at least.

Staying out of her dtilt/utilt range is the key here, specially if she's trapped on a side of the stage where she can't go back to spacing zairs. her options there are kinda limited to space with her ftilt to try to get in ( which is another move that I love to use), but it's still not good enough and samus ends up being ***** without being able to kill the opponent. Missiles take too long to be used up that close, unlike many other projectiles that will pressure samus.

Then she has her bair which is really predictable because of how slow she falls and how her other aerials won't kill you at all ( wow, nair's nerf is maybe even worse than peach's dsmash from melee).

Upb oos is kinda bad, I actually see it better to combo after an utilt or something, because used oos it's very likely that the opponent will get out in the first hits and punish it.

Her recovery is decent, but due to her low falling speed she's pretty easy to hit out of stage, she can still go back if she's careful with his second jump though.

Match-ups wise, she gets ***** by all the top tier. MK destroys here, falco can outcamp samus easily, snake can live to 300 and the only hope samus have is to gimp him 3 times ( which is still harder than for most chars because samus' dair isn't that strong so snake can't meteor cancel), Marth speed + fair totally shut down the char, etc.

She has some decent match-ups in the low tiers though, some characters that have trouble approaching ( but they can do it) her and stuff but to me she's worse than ganondorf and here's why:
Both characters seem pretty horrible to me, they have really few match-ups that aren't in their disadvantage, but Ganondorf needs to capitalize in not many mistakes to beat his counters, while samus, even when able to punish many mistakes made by the other player, she will still lose the game because her punish game is laughable.

Both characters suck, but that's my reasoning as to why Ganondorf is better, I've done the testing myself, having played samus like 10 times more than I've played Ganondorf, I've tested both characters vs a lot of people ( both that I know and that I don't), the result was always the same, Ganondorf ends up having an easier time vs most characters because he can rack insane amount of damage in few hits and kill really early. he gets camped to death, but he will still end up getting to the camper even if he has received loads of damage and can quickly even the %.

As ESAM said, without that killing trouble, she would have prolly been mid tier, because she has plenty of decent moves ( overall a mediocre character not taking in account her killing power, she's not that great either) but the way it affects this character is dumb.

 

[Red Arremer]

ZAir alone makes her already better than Ganondorf.
She also has an amazing ledge game.

 

[MetalMusicMan]

I basically agree with what Joel said.

Samus is the best zoning character in the game. With Super missiles, homing missiles, beam, and zair, she can comfortably keep a lot of characters out. She has fast moves in her D-tilt and D-smash (You might as well use them since you aren't killing with them fresh till 160% anyway), decent range with D-tilt and F-tilt, good momentum shifting in the air (Bombs) and a good arsenal for option limiting.

Her main problem is killing, and that, IMO, is the only reason she isn't in mid tier.

I agree with this, except that she's not "the best", but she is very good at it.

I actually used to main Samus waaaaaaaaaay back when, so I know a fair amount about her game.

Also, until very recently there was a good Samus player in MO named Clove who did awesome things with her, such as taking a game off of Domo's MK and almost winning the set. Unfortunately, he moved to New York a few weeks ago.

Samus is very capable in almost every matchup, it's just that she runs into a brick wall of not being able to kill and her opponent slowly comes back. If the player can manage that setback though, she can be very solid. I think Samus is one of the best low-tiers, and as ESAM said, is only held back by her killpower.

She has other downsides like not having a "real" second jab, which really sucks, but most of them are manageable due to Z-air and spacing. Up-air is really awesome and has surprising priority. Her up-tilt and d-tilt are also great and have many uses.

 

[Omni]

I think Toon Link and Metaknight zone and control space much more efficiently than Samus. Olimar, too.

I feel like a lot of people here are hyping her up unncessarily. She's garbz. Even played at a high level having the inability to effectively kill hinders he greatly. She'd be awesome if n-air was more powerful.

 

[MetalMusicMan]

Omni, everyone has said she's a solid low tier who is probably one of the best low tiers. I fail to see how that's over-hyping, lol.

 

[Omni]

Well, I was just overlooking what a lot of people said and they seem to be giving her moveset more credibility than needed. Terms like "very capable" and "so good" don't deserve to be near Samus' description.

Everything about her in all aspects of the game is either poor or mediocre EXCEPT for her weight and aerial mobility.

 

[MetalMusicMan]

Well, her Z-air really is THAT good. If anyone else had her Z-air, they would be amazing. He up-air is also "actually good".

 

[Red Arremer]

She isn't good. Never wanted to imply that either. She's just definitely not bottom tier or worse than Ganon. =P

 

[MetalMusicMan]

She isn't good. Never wanted to imply that either. She's just definitely not bottom tier or worse than Ganon. =P

Exactly-- we all said "one of the better low-tiers" or something to that effect.

 

[T-block]

How many are low tier though? I would move Jigglypuff above Samus, and I don't think I would move anyone below Samus. She's 4th worst in the game in my mind.

 

[MetalMusicMan]

IMO Samus is definitely better than Ganon, Zelda, Bowser, Captain Falcon, and Link, and possibly better than Mario and Jiggs.

Additionally, those characters are probably the only "low tiers" in this game, imo.

 

[Red Arremer]

Samus is better than Jiggs but Falcon is better.
She's perfectly fine where she is located on right now on the tierlist.

 

[[FBC] ESAM]

IMO Samus is better than Jigglypuff, triforce tier, and bowser.

Mario is above her...****ing kirinblaze is too good.

 

[Rajam]

Samus is deffintely better than Ganondorf.

Samus vs Falcon is interesting...
both are ***** by MK and Marth
They lose to Snake, though I think CF does better than Samus
Falcon also does better against Wario
Both lose to Falco
I think Samus does better against Ice Climbers
Diddy? no idea

Overall both are pretty similar against high tier characters, so I think discussing who is better can be resolved through analysis of matchups against middle/low tiers, and tournament results

Samus vs Bowser... another interesting discussion; Samus is a low risk character, very low return; Bowser is a high/very high risk character, high return. I think in a game where mistakes are decreasing over time, at this point Samus could be better than Bowser, since Samus doesn't rely on opponent mistakes as much as Bowser does.

Zair is too good btw

 

[Omni]

Dude so I was playing Noid's Samus with my MK for like the first time in months lastnight.

O_O

Samus ain't half bad. I mean, I started doing better as time progressed and I found her weak points but like:

1.) Tornado doesn't phase her. She can get out of it so well.
2.) She's pretty gdlk on Battlefield when she's camping under a platform.
3.) Her walk/dash is reallllly good. Her dash pivot tilts are excellent for spacing.
4.) She has a poopload of gimmicks.

So I take it back. She's not total ***.

Zair is too good.

 

[EdreesesPieces]

Samus has a decent move set, she just completely fails at killing. She has no problem zoning, approaching, camping, or fighting by any means. Average recovery. The problem is that the opponent both needs to be above 200% and on the ground to get even close to killing them. I'd say she's right below Lucas and the 2nd best low tier.

Edit: Also, Metroid Other M is great! Lot of people are complaining but I'm loving it so far. If only she was this good in Brawl.

 

[Kewkky]

Samus crushed my hopes when Brawl came out. She was my first main... I came straight outta Melee, literally just played lots of Melee with Samus then went to the midnight release tourney and chose her, confident that I would win. But she was just soooo bad... My heart sank.

Only good things about Samus are up+down(x4) taunt trick and her zair. Her upB OoS is a tier above her other attacks, but not exactly good. since there's gonna be some nasty punishment if you fail to hit with it. And everything else is just... Disappointing.

I agree with .joel's first post, and she is the top of her tier.

 

[Rajam]

What do you think of Samus' utilt?

 

[Kewkky]

Ehhh, I don't really like her utilt. It doesn't have as many uses as one would wish for an utilt, it's pretty slow so opponents can sneak in quick attacks before her hitbox gets them, and people can shieldgrab it. I mean yeah, this is to be expected from a low tier character and I'd say it's a good move for a low tier to have, but in the grand scheme of things I don't find it good.

 

[EdreesesPieces]

Samus crushed my hopes when Brawl came out. She was my first main... I came straight outta Melee, literally just played lots of Melee with Samus then went to the midnight release tourney and chose her, confident that I would win. But she was just soooo bad... My heart sank.

This is like the life story of every Melee samus main. Hugo once told me this same story lol. I feel bad for you guys. She didn't deserve that kind of treatment. It's not like the programming of the game just happened to nerf her (like lack of hitstun, floatiness, etc) a la, Falcon. Samus was purposely weakened and nerfed as much as possible by the programmers and its pretty apparent in her moveset.

 

[Crow!]

Samus' UTilt is a kill move, which makes it important for her. It's not a good kill move, but Samus will have to take what she can get.

 

[Kewkky]

Samus' UTilt is a kill move, which makes it important for her. It's not a good kill move, but Samus will have to take what she can get.

I think that it's too unsafe to be even used as a kill move. Whenever I use Samus I try to not throw them out unless I'm sure it will connect, which usually leans towards never. To utilt you stop all of your movement, and since it's not scary when it hits the opponent's shield, you end up in a pretty bad position or doing it and missing.

I'll just stick to bairs, dtilts and fsmashes.

 

[[FBC] ESAM]

I've killed people at 120% from the edge (unsuspecting when their invulnerability ran out) with a U-tilt :D

 

[Kewkky]

I've killed people at 120% from the edge (unsuspecting when their invulnerability ran out) with a U-tilt :D

You situational shenanigan user, you.

 

[TheMike]

As Crow! didn't post that usual chart, I will do so. Her tournament perfomance is the second worst compared to the characters of her tier. She loses to Ganondorf(not shown in the chart but the thread proves it), who is one tier below, though wins Bowser, who is currently one tier above.

Her walk/dash is reallllly good.

Her dash is good(very good), but the walk isn't that good. Link's is better.

 

[Kewkky]

Her dash is good(very good), but the walk isn't that good. Link's is better.

Does Link's walk being better make Samus' walk any less good?

 

[TheMike]

Does Link's walk being better make Samus' walk any less good?

No, I was just comparing Samus walk to the walk of a character currently placed below her.

 

[Kewkky]

No, I was just comparing Samus walk to the walk of a character currently placed below her.

I wasn't calling you out or anything, just pointing out why statements like that aren't good candidates for arguments.

 

[TheMike]

Ah, thanks, then. I just wanted to say that her walk isn't even the best among low tiers. :X

 

[Red Arremer]

I would take the tournament performance of low tiers more with a grain of salt than with top tiers, considering that one like Top 4 place already boosts their placement by 2 or 3 places.

 

[Xyro77]

SBR, please watch some of these vids so you can understand Samus a bit better. Ive selected a few vids to show you how well samus does against higher level players(note: all players im fighting are the top 3 in their respected field).



Xyro77 (Samus) vs. San (Ike) (7/30/10)
Xyro77 (Samus) vs. San (Ike) (7/30/10)
Xyro77 (Samus) vs. San (Ike) (7/30/10)
Xyro77 (Samus) vs. San (Ike) (7/30/10)
Xyro77 (Samus) vs. San (Ike) (7/30/10)

Xyro77 (Samus) vs Illmatic (Peach) (7/17/10)
Xyro77 (Samus) vs Illmatic (Peach) (7/17/10)

Xyro77 (Samus) vs. Royr (Captain Falcon) (9/13/09)

Xyro77 (Samus) vs. Legan (Link) (8/19/09)
Xyro77 (Samus) vs. Legan (Link) (8/19/09)
Xyro77 (Samus) vs. Legan (Link) (8/19/09)
Xyro77 (Samus) vs. Legan (Link) (8/19/09)








Right off the bat, its clear Samus excels at BUILDING damage but cant seem to land that killing move. Her kill moves are F smash(tilted up), D smash, D tilt, Charge shot(full charged), Dair. The rest(bair/ftilt/jab...ect) do not kill untill HUGE percents or just not that viable(bombs/nair/usmash) during matches. Samus is the 7th HEAVIEST in the game( http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=162546 ) so her living to obscene percents(assuming good DI) is very common. She is 2nd floatiest(2nd to jiggs) so her coming back to stage is not an issue( http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=162546 ). She also has the 4th best dash/fox trot in the game http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=244329 so thats a plus for a Low Tier character.

Offensive(long distance) is what she excels at. Lock-on missles/Homing missles/Charge shot/Zair can all be mixed in ways that FORCE the foe to approach you in certain ways and causes them to try stupid things to get thru the wall of spam. Missles to grab can be a frame trap(power shielded or not). Zair to fully charge shot is guaranteed with or without DI on certain chars at certain %s(thats 30% or more) and its relatively easy to pull off.

Offensive(close quarters) is her weakest point. She cant kill and her moves that are close up(jab/ftilt/dtilt) all have huge amounts of ending lag that she can be punished after some one SHIELDS(and im not even including power shielding). Though this does not apply when facing ganon(rofl).


Zair: This move never stales. It does 4% damage unspaced and 7% spaced(also does big knock back) Can go through walls(pkmn 1 and pkmn 2) and go through nearly every legal stage in the game. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBpMevs6a9Y it is also one of the BEST gimping tools in this game. It is also the longest tether in the game(longer than olimars/zs).

MUs: Her absolute worst are MK/Olimar/DDD. Marth/Falco/TL/Snake/Diddy are not far behind. As for Low tier, shes has advantages on bowser(bowser is low tier)/ike/ganon/link/yoshi/zelda. Goes even with jiggs/falcon and loses to lucas and mario.

Teams: In LT teams i think she is top 3 no matter what team mate she has(even ganon) because her flaw of losing in close quater combat is gone(there is no time for long drawn out 1vs1 fights during teams). She is BROKEN with a lucas on her team(fully charge shot to magnet heals 30%) or Ike(power house) in case you care about that info. As for regular teams, shes "just OK" at BEST because of the large numbers of MK/Snake/Diddy negate anything she has.









Im going to stop here because i know others would like to throw in some of their own thoughts. I recommend you listen to ME/No-Idea/KillerJawz when it comes to samus. Most of the others dont TRULY understand Samus and/or brawl.




PS: if the sbr needs some LT results(teams or singles) i can provide LOTS.

 

[KillerJawz]

SBR, please watch some of these vids so you can understand Samus a bit better. Ive selected a few vids to show you how well samus does against higher level players(note: all players im fighting are the top 3 in their respected field).

BBR you may want to take a look at some of mine as well:

KillerJawz (Samus) vs. IxisNaugus (Bowser)
KillerJawz (Samus) vs. IxisNaugus (Bowser)
KillerJawz (Samus) vs. IxisNaugus (Bowser)
KillerJawz (Samus) vs. IxisNaugus (Bowser)

KillerJawz (Samus) vs. Izaw (Link)
KillerJawz (Samus) vs. Izaw (Link)
KillerJawz (Samus) vs. Izaw (Link)
KillerJawz (Samus) vs. Izaw (Link)
KillerJawz (Samus) vs. Izaw (Link)
KillerJawz (Samus) vs. Izaw (Link)

Also all our videos can be found here:

http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=232606

Right off the bat, its clear Samus excels at BUILDING damage but cant seem to land that killing move. Her kill moves are F smash(tilted up), D smash, D tilt, Charge shot(full charged), Dair. The rest(bair/ftilt/jab...ect) do not kill untill HUGE percents or just not that viable(bombs/nair/usmash) during matches.

Bair kills earlier then Dtilt, it's just RIDICULOUSLY difficult to land it, but yeah, that's right.

Samus is the 7th HEAVIEST in the game( http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=162546 ) so her living to obscene percents(assuming good DI) is very common. She is 2nd floatiest(2nd to jiggs) so her coming back to stage is not an issue( http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=162546 ). She also has the 4th best dash/fox trot in the game http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=244329 so thats a plus for a Low Tier character.

Because her Dash is so good, shield dashing is a prefered option for a Samus who has to engage in CQC. Walking is just not as good.

Offensive(long distance) is what she excels at. Lock-on missles/Homing missles/Charge shot/Zair can all be mixed in ways that FORCE the foe to approach you in certain ways and causes them to try stupid things to get thru the wall of spam. Missles to grab can be a frame trap(power shielded or not). Zair to fully charge shot is guaranteed with or without DI on certain chars at certain %s(thats 30% or more) and its relatively easy to pull off.

^This. Also, I would like to add like missiles have TERRIBLE priority. You see Mario's Fludd? It beats out HOMING MISSLES. You see Charge Shot? That's beaten out by Ness'/Luigi's/Peach's/Jigg's NAIR!!!!. All of her specials have diabolical priority.

Offensive(close quarters) is her weakest point. She cant kill and her moves that are close up(jab/ftilt/dtilt) all have huge amounts of ending lag that she can be punished after some one SHIELDS(and im not even including power shielding). Though this does not apply when facing ganon(rofl).

Yup. We do have an OoS option in UpB, but even then it's easily SDI'ed by certain characters and unless it's on BF, you're taking a risk whenever you use this move. We kind of have nair OoS, but nair is just TERRIBLE. The opponent has to be over 40% to avoid you taking a severe amount of punishment for using this move.

Zair: This move never stales. It does 4% damage unspaced and 7% spaced(also does big knock back) Can go through walls(pkmn 1 and pkmn 2) and go through nearly every legal stage in the game. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBpMevs6a9Y it is also one of the BEST gimping tools in this game. It is also the longest tether in the game(longer than olimars/zs).

If Zair hits in midair at lower %s, it combos into itself on floaties like Peach.

Im going to stop here because i know others would like to throw in some of their own thoughts. I recommend you listen to ME/No-Idea/KillerJawz when it comes to samus. Most of the others dont TRULY understand Samus and/or brawl.

Why thank you, and now, I shall begin.

Throughout this thread, I've already seen a large amount of nonsence. Talk of Samus being better then BOWSER? WHAHAHAHAHAHA. No. That nonsence stops now. I shall now lay out this explanation in paragraphs. Warning: Be prepared for a read.


Samus's camping game.

Okay, Samus is known for her camping game in Brawl. With a zersatile moveset in terms for camping equipped with Zair, Missiles and Charge Shot, she can wrack up that damage faster then many other characters. She can combo her projectiles into a lot of things, charge shot to grab works at lower percentages, missiles to grabs, zair to grab, zair to charge shot, the possibilities go on and on. However, with all good things, like Samus, there are major drawbacks to this.

1. Lack of Priority -

Samus lacks priority in ALL of her special moves. Bombs are destroyed by simply shielding their first hitbox without the second one (explosion) going off. Her Missiles are beating by nearly every characters JAB, and too add, her homing missiles are beaten by Mario's Fludd, regardless of what charge. Whilst Samus can do 5% and 10% fresh on each kind of Missile, they are easily avoided due to how slow they travel. Whilst they can be missile cancelled for maximum effect, they are still far too slow and will more then likely be beating out by a said characters approaching option. For example, Ike can fair/nair the missiles, ganon can uair them etc etc.

Charge Shot has poor priority on every single level of Charge, and it's quite sickening tbh. I first discovered this madness when I was playing with my friend Ixis and found out that Bowser's fair made Charge Shot clank with it, so Bowser was unharmed, and the charge shot kept travelling. As I continued to play more people, I found that charge shot was outpriorities by: Luigi's Nair, Peach's Nair, MK's Dair/Uair, Snake's nade (the two of them hit eachother, blowing eachother up) and Nikita. There is an infinite list, but basically, charge shot is absolutely AWFUL. Whilst it does 26% fresh, it's just simply awful in terms of actual practical use. It's slow, easy to see coming and lacks the knockback necessary to make it an effective killing move.

Samus's aerial game

Now this may be a bit of a surprise, but Samus' aerial game is actually good. Equipped with Uair and Zair, she juggles and tears through opponents who find themselves airborne. She can utilize her uair with it's poor knockback to combo into many different things. When it's fast falled, it combos into UpB, Jab, D/Fsmash, D and ftilt. Apart from Jab, most of these options can be power shielded with the correct timing, but most of the time these will connect. Rising uair has VERY good platform control, poking at shielding is also a strong point of this move. Unlike ZSS, Samus can actually DEAL with shields, and really hurt a person for shielding.

Zair is just amazing. As Xyro said, it never stales, it's a superb anti air, has perfect knockback for comboing into itself as well as other moves. This move is just.. amazing. We can zair through the stage on multiple stages such as Battlefield, Final Destination, Smashville, Lylat and many many others, so it's very good for us to stay on the edge. Zair is one of the best zoning tools in the game, but Samus herself isn't the best zoner (just answering a question that was said earlier).

Nair is a pretty poor move, but is tied for fastest aerial coming out (frame 5, same as uair). It gimps really really well on characters with mediocre recoveries like Ganon, Link, Zelda, Falcon etc etc, so it makes a really good gimper in low tier. This move's knockback at lower percentages is just stupid, the opponent goes NOWHERE, we get punished for using this move at anywhere below 40%, but it does make a good combo breaker.

Bair is Samus' strongest aerial in terms of knockback, killing just a little later then up angled fsmash. This move's hitbox is POOR, it's ridiculously hard to use and should only be used after a follow up from dair, or an offstage fall of bair for edgeguarding purposes.

Fair is the most overrated move in Samus' arsenal. It can be fast falled to combo into many moves like uair can, but this move doesn't autocancel as well and puts the opponent infront of us, so our options are limited. Unlike uair however, this move has POOR priority, it's beaten out by a ton of other moves and is really only used as a damage racker, but even then, missile follow ups lead to more damage then this move anyway seeing as it is easily SDI'ed.

Dair is the most used move in any newcomer Samus's arsenal, and why shouldn't it be? The move combos so nicely into UpB at higher percentages, Dsmash at lower percentages and even an fsmash if you're Xyro. This move however lacks any kind of priority, so most utilts will beat this move out, and with it coming out so slowly there really is no point in using this move so much, you will get punished for it alot. Whilst it's hitbox is very large, it's punishable on block.

So overall, Samus has a nice aerial game, more then enough to make it one of the better aerial games in Brawl.

Samus living.

Samus is the 7th heaviest in the game, along with one of the poorest fall speeds in the game, giving her the 'floaty' attribute. This is both a curse and a gift, moreso the first option, but it does have it's good sides. Being floaty allows Samus to escape many locks quite a deal of % quicker then other characters like Sheik's ftilt lock, Falco's chaingrabs and Pikachu's chaingrabs (ironically, Samus loses to all three of these characters). The floaty attribute also helps out her aerial game and off stage game and allows her to live longer when being sent off the sides (some of the time). When Samus is sent vertically however... she dies as early, if not EARLIER then Ivysaur!, this is a pain in the *** for us Samus mains, because it really hurts in the top tier MUs like Snake and Marth, who thrive in killing off the top. Also, because she's so floaty, she is combo'd by uairs like ZSS's, Marth's and MK's REALLY REALLY easily.

Samus's recovery is actually underrated. She can recover from distances that other low tiers can't, and also has the ability to stall with bombs. She has the biggest ledge autosnap in the entire game and her UpB covers quite some distance. Also gimping a Samus is one of the more tougher things to do in this game. Only a few characters are able to do this effectivly, so Samus has a really really good survivability rate.

Samus with good DI can survive almost as long as a Snake.

No. Just no. In a perfect world maybe. Snake lives that long because of his weight and his beautiful fast fall. We are very heavy yes, so if we actually had a FAST FALL we'd be living nearly as long as him, sadly, this isn't the case.

Samus attempting to kill


Now this is a problem that Samus suffers with MORE THEN ANY OTHER CHARACTER. I can say this with 170% (ROFL) confidence and I highly doubt anybody will challenge me on this. All of her kill moves are just.... terrible, and I'll go over just why this is.

FSmash - This move comes out on a respectable frame 7, so speaking in that sense, it's fast. It does however LACK a hitbox, and when we angle it up to kill faster, we STILL miss the opponent at times. For example, angling this move up means we cannot hit Kirby/Jiggs/Pika/Squirtle. You may want to have a glance at THIS: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZnDCwIkFlg (on her Upb, just imagine two hitbubbles at either side of her before she launches into the air, that wasn't included in the .pac)

That video displays the hitbubbles for all of her moves. As you can see, she lacks hitbubbles for quite literally everything... Ftilt has a nice amount, but the ending lag on that move is just stupid...

But as you can see at 1:23, Fsmash lacks any kind of respectable range, and is therefore, not a good kill move, especially when up angled Fsmash doesn't kill Bowser until 160% with good DI fresh from the centre of FD.

Dsmash - This isn't a kill move, I'm coming out with that now. It does 14% and is really only to be used as a damage wracker or GTFO option, it's knockback is poor and won't kill until around 170% with DI and fresh on FD.

Usmash - Useless move and won't kill until 200%.

Dtilt - This move is STRICTLY for lights. Jigglypuff dies around 125% to a fresh Dtilt, so that's alright, but the problem with this, is that it's only for lights. Use this on Bowser and he ain't dying until about 170 or so, and even so, this should be STALE, because it's one of her better OoS and overall a very good damage wracker. If this move is shielded, you are getting HURT. It's frame disadvantage on shields is just STUPID. Whilst it comes out quickly, it just doesn't have enough power to kill effectivly.

Utilt - This move is more of a edgeguarder/anti air if anything, and kills around the same time as Fsmash provided the opponent is hit by the first hitbox. The last hitbox cannot kill since it slams the opponent into the ground. This move is too slow, to be considered a kill move anyway.

Bair - Way way way too hard to land, kills around the same time as fsmash.

So basically, Samus can't kill, this is why she is a terrible character. She can pile on the damage, but LANDING the kill move, even when your opponent is in death percentages, is just far too difficult because she has NO KILL SETUPS.

Falco isn't exactly a king of killing, BUT he has setups with dthrow to bdacus and such, we have NOTHING like that, this is why Xyro loves his teams, because Samus doesn't suffer from her usual fatalities as much here.

And finally... Close Quarters Combat (CQC)

When an opponent gets past Samus's spam, she has very few options, and these are just painful to watch. She has Jab/Ftilt/UpB and run to the ledge. I always opt for the latter option, because I know that not many characters can take a Samus on the ledge, it's her zone. If I am not facing a Kirby/Jiggs/MK/Marth, I will GLADLY take to the ledge every single time, and gladly run the clock, but we are assuming that this Samus isn't as gay as myself or Xyro, so we'll use NO-IDea instead. He's going to Ftilt or Jab, and this my friends, is Samus's CQC game. Her Jab lacks any kind of hitstun so it can't combo into anything without the risk of being shielded, her ftilt has terrible ending lag so it's punishable if shielded and UpB OoS is easily SDI'ed.

Samus can shield dash in and out of close quarters combat whilst looking like an idiot doing so. She needs a solid move to actually endure this. If she had a ftilt like Snake's, or jab like Ike's, she may actually have a CQC game, sadly this isn't and will never be, the case.

To add, Samus's grab is the second longest in the game (beaten out by Olimar's with a blue pikmin), and has the worst ending lag and start up lag (frame 17 normal/dash, frame 19 pivoted) of ANY other grab. It's awful, and is really only used to punish spot dodges because it lingers a bit. Even once we've grabbed an opponent, NONE of our throws combo into anything or do any major damage (uthrow does 10/11%, that's our best option).

For all the reasons I've stated and many many more which I will allow another Samus main to add, I would like to conclude that Samus is the 3rd worst character in the entire game, IF she could kill, I would not hesitate to put her in mid tier, because that is where a character like her DESERVES to be. She just cannot kill. She can gimp, sure, but in the highest levels of play, that just isn't happening.

Samus should NEVER rise. She lacks any kind of decent placements outside of low tier, lacks tourny representation, lacks EVERYTHING. Too even consider this character is better then Link is an absolute outrage.

Responding to some BBR quotes

Samus is very capable in almost every matchup, it's just that she runs into a brick wall of not being able to kill and her opponent slowly comes back. If the player can manage that setback though, she can be very solid. I think Samus is one of the best low-tiers, and as ESAM said, is only held back by her killpower.

No, she isn't capable in almost every match up. She gets hard countered by: Olimar, Dedede, Marth, Metaknight, Snake (debatable), Falco, Wolf (debatable), Toon Link, Wario, Diddy Kong and Game & Watch (debatable). She also loses to Pikachu, Mario, Ness, Lucas, DK (debatable), Pit, Ice Climbers, Lucario, Zero Suit Samus, Kirby and Sonic.

She isn't one of the best low tiers, not when she gets destroyed by every single top tier, a lot of high tiers, a ton of mid tiers, and even some low tiers.

I feel like a lot of people here are hyping her up unncessarily. She's garbz. Even played at a high level having the inability to effectively kill hinders he greatly. She'd be awesome if n-air was more powerful.

I LOVE YOU. No seriously, what you have just said is what everybody must begin to understand to see where Samus TRULY stands. She's a terrible character, I could even argue for 2nd worst, but 3rd worst is acceptable.

IMO Samus is definitely better than Ganon, Zelda, Bowser, Captain Falcon, and Link, and possibly better than Mario and Jiggs.

I would like you to leave now please.

Dude so I was playing Noid's Samus with my MK for like the first time in months lastnight.

O_O

Samus ain't half bad.

NOID is one of the best Samus players in the world, it's only natural he would do well. You just didn't know the MU as you did say you were doing progressivly better as the matches went on.




The chart that TheMike has just posted IRONICALLY BAHAHAHAHA SHOWS THAT SHES 3RD WORST IN TERMS OF PLACEMENTS. Consider this before the theorycrafting gets out of hand. Also, Bowser being 2nd worst in terms of placements is of no surprise, he has less players then freaking Samus x.x.

 

[Xyro77]

I also would like to clarify that Samus is NOT as bad as KJ is making her seem. She IS low tier and should STAY low tier but she is not bottom 5 in the game.

 

[Meru.]

I also would like to clarify that Samus is NOT as bad as KJ is making her seem. She IS low tier and should STAY low tier but she is not bottom 5 in the game.

Who is she better than?