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Brief guide to important Samus microsituations and underutilized options. Have fun w it!

wmd93

Smash Rookie
Joined
Mar 15, 2017
Messages
10
Alright boys, lets go. Since I've never posted here, I'll give a lil background on me in some hope to gain credibility. Im a competitive guy, but I prefer to compete with myself rather than other players. This fact combined with my work schedule means I don't travel and only seldom attend locals. Despite that, I've been playing a whole lot of samus with a whole lot of good players for a whole hell of a while, and this game is a great outlet for my analytical tendencies; I'm all about it y'all.
So, my friends!! Let us share high tech samus toys in hopes that we can learn and grow together as, like, a community and stuff.

Full disclosure, I haven't slept in like two days.

Woo let's do it yay!!

We'll start off vanilla and basic af just so everyone can dip their toes into this here samus water. This doesn't really fit with the theme of this post, which is to discuss neglected options in an attempt to get Samus babes across the country to make better decisions and better represent this beautiful boss babe character... That being said, Samus has some of the best grab conversions in the game, aside from the actual good characters. And just in case no one has written this down yet, I'm gonna go ahead and jot this down cause golly gee it's legitimately too important not to know if you're a samus player who cares at all about taking stocks




VANILLA *and slightly less vanilla* AZZ GRAB CONVERSIONS:


We'll start w the fast fallers, just cause they're by far the most fun. If you grab a spacie with your back to the ledge, you can back throw them if you really want to, usually into a missle, charge shot, or just standard uptilt/chase down back air or nair/ftilt if they somehow side b. Or if you really want to turn a guaranteed conversion into a 50/50, you can down throw a ffer and see if they'll tech. Kind of useful if you're around a platform near the ledge, since they get trapped in a corner and will let you eat their families if they try to move off the ground, buuuuut

Usually, my dudes, just up throw, cause you can, you know, do literally any aerial no matter what they do. If they DI on any platform on yoshis or fountain, do yourself a favor and dair. The cool kids will say do an aerial interrupt down smash or grab, but uh just don't. Just dair. Regardless of whether or not they tech you can face them with a down smash or down tilt into standard samus bair/fsmash/nair type conversions, just time the dsmash or tilt properly and don't get screwed by tech intangibility. It's a dumb way to drop a combo.

Some lame, intelligent people will fall off the platform after your dair. If they fall onto a side platform, slam your metal self down there asap with a nair (can also do fair type stuff but that opens up for the potentiality of their escape. But if you wanna do baller, fake combos like fall off fair into fall through platform upair into uptilt down air, all on the platform, then I mean. Go for it. But they can just jump or shield at most points, so just nair dude. Let's make samus great again and pick good options.) so yeah if the nair doesn't cover their tech option, a downsmash fsmash downtilt charge shot or literally any move you can think of doing to someone whose trapped in tech stun like two pixels away from you. Just be slick about it and don't jab them or something stupid like that. If you get real lucky they'll just bounce around platforms for a second, in which case you have fast, awesome option (nair), fast, potentially higher reward option (fair), or slow, high reward, more situational (dair). Fun fact, you usually can't rush dairs on platforms unless it's off a grab. Otherwise they'll probably have time to be actionable, and the smart ones will usually try to get up attack you before your slow dair hit box comes out. You can counter this by being floaty and baiting them before you double jump and fast fall down on them. Hooray for the limited situations where samus is allowed to be on top of people. Also remember you can charge shot tech chase on any platform from almost anywhere on almost every stage. So. Do that bro.

Really, really bright fast fallers will try to bait you into going for the platform before they drift to the ground out of the grab. Gotta be real vigilant for this, cause it's ambiguous as hell and difficult to react to. Best options are either back air (do recall you can do a little turnaround before the jump and back air any di whatsoever, even if they go for top platform at slightly higher percents. Not that hard just practice it and try to actually react not read) or down air. If you bair, just follow and try to edge guard or push the ffers, if you dair, they'll most likely escape if they can tech away from you. If they don't tech, you can do any grounded move, I'd suggest down moves, or a jab reset grab or down smash or whatever, but that just gives them another chance to get away. Disclaimer:falcon can jump out before you get the dair at really low percents and spacies can shine at low percents if you're too slow, so don't mess up homie. Nair is always a safe follow up option off upthrow, easy as hell to react and always works. But it's the lowest reward unless your opponent goes insane and slams his stick toward you, in which case you can do literally whatever you want with aerials while you basically pillar them to death. But good players won't make grab combos easy.

BF and dreamland are way more annoying to convert on due to the height of top platform, but you can get a fair, nair, or up air if you time it real slick. If they mess up and are too slow to do a getup on the top platty, you can get up there and dair, but that's entirely dependent on them screwing up pretty bad. Just get whatever conversion you can with whatever aerial you feel is right fam and then later we'll cry about how much better Samus would be if every stage had platforms that loved her. (Mini tangent: dreamland is overhyped as hell and occasionally bad for samus depending on play styles and mus. I'd rather be able to kill a fox off a single hit than survive a little longer.)

Basically every other MU you're gonna wanna down throw. Marth, you can dash attack or ftilt far away di, nair or uptilt (and sometimes f or d smash but it shouldn't be guaranteed) off no DI, and try to dair if they go on side platform. Converts into rad back airs and nairs.

Sheik is a sadder version of the same. Fsmash no di, ftilt far di, can sometimes dash attack if they sort of tilt away from you. Charge shots can happen occasionally but that also shouldn't be guaranteed.

Puff you can nair or fair every DI at most percents, but sometimes ballsy puffs can rest you out of the nair cause, ya know, cool character, right? Charge shot is pretty confirmed at like 60% (ish?).

Peach can usually wiggle out of the down throw, but you might be able to squeeze out a fair or nair.

Now for the fun stuff that I actually made this post to talk about




UP B FOLLOW UPS:




Always been surprised at the lack of up b combos I see on streamed games, seeing as how it can zero to death people (spacies especially) under the right circumstances, many of which spacies readily put themselves into out of high tech samus ignorance and fear.

Especially on yoshis and fountain, but also on BF and dreamland, if you up b a spacie into a platform cancel toward the top platform, assuming they DI top, you can convert into a fair onto top platform, as long as you're fast enough to autoland on top platform (if you don't, can go under and do upair pressure, or if they manage to pop off the top real quick and come at you, you can do a falling upair off the side platform, often times into a downsmash or grab if they manage to reactively shield. If you get the top platform fair, people often DI themselves into dtilt or down smash, que cookie cutter samus conversions. if they DI away after the fair maybe reset to neutral, but there are niche situations where you can convert with spaced nair or shield drops if they are dumb enough to charge you on side platform after the fair. Another fun conversion, and this is literally the goddamn best thing in the world, is if you're facing center stage when you UP b and go for top platform. If you platty cancel toward center with your back drifting toward top platty, you can cover their stationary landing with nair, fair, or bair, if they tech toward you, drift in and nair or fair, and (this is the one that's the best thing in the world) if they roll away, you can cover center with a quick bair and then cover the roll away with a nair. IF YOU PLATTY CANCEL THAT NAIR you can get another one instantaneously into an edge guard or platty tech chase if they di there for some reason.

Backward up b into bair coverage, double nair hit makes samus look like a race tank with bullet arms. It's just.. so great.

Platform cancel up bs can also chain into backair if they tech toward you on the platform when you're canceling your move. Just drop zone bair immediately and it should hit. Falcon and marth, and sometimes sheik, really like to get hit by upairs after your platty cancels. Hell, everyone does sometimes. If you time it right you can get a downsmash on the ground after the upair. You just have to time it right to ensure they can't shield



LEARN TO PLATFORM CANCEL CONSISTENTLY BROS AND UM JUST GENERALLY MOVE FASTER WITH SAMUS, CAUSE ALMOST NO ONE KNOWS HOW FOR NO REASON WHATSOEVER



Platty cancels are most often seen with her up b, but, despite their only situational utility, they can often lead to amazing, guaranteed conversions whilst elevating Samus' horizontal and vertical mobility significantly, especially during combos or strings on some of the slower, heavier characters, or when species DI to side platforms off the top one, most notably after up throw down smash/tilt or up b. Can hit people with like four moves in a second or two if you space and time it real pretty, especially on those side platforms. Properly fast falling nairs between platforms seriously makes Sammy move like falco platform or l canceled nair generally sets up perfectly for missile coverage off stage to limit options into a telegraphed edge guard, jus make sure you follow your combo dummy well, gents. Gotta be faaaast.

(Will film one day when I'm feelin myself to demonstrate speed and hit box capabilities of samus, I guess. Cause it's absurdly underutilized by both the wave dash back down smash folk who can't make samus move and the super fast jazz samuses who seem to either have trouble positioning and using her entire tool box (most notably ftilt and carefully reasoned tech chases/positioning - harder to use precision movement when you're fighting the stage). Remember boys, you can be fast and slow in the same game. You don't have to commit to a play style for an entire game... learn to make samus move, guys. I swear she has like 3 different fast fall speeds or something. Make that baby mooooove, but with precision, ok? So sit in your shield for like a second or so if you need to, don't just waveland and jump around, but don't just sit there in your dang shield all day trying to fish for a down smash.... Samus has good moves other than ftilt and down smash and good movement options other than run around waveland on everything ever. Srs. Do both. Use all her moves except up smash (fun fact time boys lmao up smash actually kinda works when you're on yoshis and you aerial interrupt onto that sunken lip into an immediate *would not be surprised if it's invincible. It's so fast* up smash if enemy is on side platform. It's so fast people can't reactively shield, but I wouldn't exactly recommend trying to do that unless you just really wanna make up smash useful. No one would blame you for going balls deep here but it's more a hilarious mixup than a great option.)

Good way to practice is just fast falling between platforms like a maniac. Can eventually move to very quickly weaving between platforms with platform canceled aerials, try to dair or fair off platforms out of fast fall jumps into fast fall up airs, nairs, and fairs going down off the platform. Also work on going through platforms. A good practice technique is drop zone fast falling off top platforms with fair or upair into immediate fast fall fair or upair through the platform. If you do it properly with fair for example it'll look like you just did one big fair in the span of a half second. It's radical, gang. Don't necessarily do that kind of crap in game, unless it's situationally appropriate. Like if you wanna stunt on a scrub and do ff fair into another fair into an uptilt on the platform into dair or bair into murder, it's great. But smart people will shield between your fairs, cause that's depressingly an option. So. Yeah. Usually a bad idea to ya know just fall on most characters with samus, unless they're jazzy maniacs jumping all over the place not doing moves, so resist the temptation to do things like platform cancel dair into bair, cause you'll want to man, but save that kind of fun junk for the rare appropriate situations, like punishing slightly laggy premature moves under platforms, or that super rare moment when you throw a character like marth or sheik under a low fountain platform and can cover all of their di options with a platform canceled dair on that lil baby platform. But seriously tho guys. Just stick to canceling those missiles, fairs, upairs, and nairs for the most part. And learn to move, guys. Learn to move.


Speaking of which, Uh..



SHIELD DROP BOIS:


aight guys let's do it we're in this we're talking about samus ok ok we're back let's go

It's not like good players often times mindlessly charge your shield on a platform, but samus is a really bursty character who thrives on a refined mixture of reads and reactions while shifting from fast samus to slow samus. So you're running away ya know and some **** bag comes and tries to stick his knee on your face while you're in the air or on a platform or falling toward one ya know and you land ya know and you ANTICIPATE THIS cause ya know melee right and do a dash shield maybe even super cool power shield it and a shield drop fair if they're in front of you or upair if you want to or whatever or if they're behind. Nair if you're the coolest, but it's stupid hard to get shield drop nair out on a platform. Upair usually links into a fair or another upair, sometimes a nair, if you're really awesome you can FF (MOVE FAST WITH SAMUS DUDES BURST SPEED PRESS DOWN MORE AND OMG BE FAST ABOUT IT PLEASE) into an immediate uptilt, should either shield pressure them in which case you can probably poke with up b (which us cool kids can convert into a 60% combo or stock if we're real slick like about it) or it'll actually hit them, in which case low percents allow fast platform coverage like um any aerial except dair while sliiiightly higher percentages (like ~20ish roundabout) should convert into a platform fair into platform tech chase cookie cutter down move stuff into the *follow the flying pixel body across the stage* game or fast fall grounded tech chase if they di away, but you gotta be really fast guys. Move guys. Think of samus like falco. You've got these quick, hard hitting burst moves that can be done on move if you just jam that stick down with the move and barrel into that damn platform. Again, I swear samus has like 9 fall speeds. She bolts homies. Sometimes nair also works off the platform if they DI to the ground. That's a fun one they usually miss the tech and let you chase them to the ledge or charge shot them. Gr8 stuff boys really quality stuff.


Fair should allllmost always lead to nair, but unless you auto cancel the nair (which you should do if you wanna be a trill kind of person), in which case conversions become infinitely more feasible. Can also try to uptilt from below, but they'll probably get shield out in time if they know what's going on. In that event you can try to do some safe mixup shield pressure (probably one of the only times I advocate using bombs on shielded platforms, just be sneaky ya dig and try to actually hit them with things after the bomb instead of floating away with a big dumb floaty smile on your pretty little head). It's so great guys it's just I'm tearing up a little this is just so great thank you all so much for being a part of this or whatev-


COMMON MICROSITUATIONS


Let's talk about, say fox, that glossly little f**kboy critter that everyone and their mom likes to play. Couple of lil niche encounters that happen often. like when they tech an edge guard off the ledge and Firefox immediately outside the range of your grounded moves (fall nair or rising nair depending on the fox, but it's usually pretty guaranteed if you time it right, or you can stay on the stage and gamble whether they'll go up or take ledge with the fire fox.
Or conversations on how to take space versus campy space animals (power shielding fox lasers is hilarious and a great mind game. Even better when you zero to death them off a movement read that they traded for 20 percent in lasers). You can shield all of foxes lasers if you do it right, just wave dash up to him and get in his face where he doesn't want to shoot you. Then he'll either try to jump over you or charge straight at you, or maybe take ledge/occupy the limited space between you and the ledge, hoping you'll mess up your spacing and let him get out. You don't even have to attack sometimes, but if you do, especially when they're just barely off the ledge under a platform, you can threaten the space with precision ftilts and challenge the platform with a fast nair or up air, can theoretically aerial interrupt onto the platform and try to get a downsmash, but uh just don't do that. Be sure not to take too much space toward the ledge, it makes it easier for fox to jump over you. There's a little sweet nook where your foot covers moooost of the space between samus and the fox, and you can reactively cover ANYTHING they try to do with either the nair, ftilts, and shield or wavedash back counter move if you think they're gonna try to attack you for some reason.

Falco lasers are more obnoxious since you can't shield them all if the falco is really, really good about it (which, thankfully, most falco's aren't the most cautious of players. Thank goddd or else falco samus would almost look like peach samus with a higher *possibility* of combos). Power shield is great. Can do the dash forward variety or the crouch, both are pretty reactable with the visual or the audio cue if you can get the timing down. But your goal is essentially to take space on falco and make him want to shield or retreat toward the ledge. If you're really fast and the falco isn't good at covering power shields, wd forward ftilt can be a good option, or grab if they tend to stay grounded after dealing with their own stupid lasers, but I'd recommend gauging their habits before running up and grabbing blue bird in neutral.

If you're having trouble with the lasers, just get as many power shields as you can while you weave through the platforms (again, intelligently and quickly, don't just meander around.) he might try to shffl up air you if you're on a lower platform. Difficult to shield drop punish that, so you should probably just readjust and try to get a missile out to see if home boy likes to shine and get hit by aerials, or do super fast cool kid wavelands into retreating missiles or a long bair as a mixup. People love getting hit by that long bair, baby. They really do. Especially hilarious when they miss their tech and let you dash attack or dsmash/tilt them into all kinds of follow ups like more dash attacks and down smashes because the majority of people can't escape samus' bangin magnet bod. Funniest troll move is when a fox or falco keeps diing away from you on Yoshis or fountain off of a down smash. Follow immediately and they end up teching into the corner for a guaranteed down smash or f smash. Once got 6 down smashes on a yoshis fox. It's just comedic gold, guys. Really rich stuff. Just make sure you do that cool thing where you take space, instead of over extending. Don't let them roll behind you but make sure you can cover roll toward ledge w fsmash or downsmash if you're feeling hilarious.

Another fun one is yoshis/fountain up b, mostly with fox and falco. Can get that dirty confirmed downsmash or tilt if they land on top platform with you. What you wanna do after that is kind of gauge their DI. so if they go low off stage, they're probably gonna wanna sweet spot asap with a Side b. In which case you're gonna wanna cover it with a ftilt or fsmash, and then either grab ledge, pray for coverage on stage, or run off and shoot them with your fancy gun.

More seasoned spacies will di toward the ground or onto side platforms. If you platform cancel on the side and they go top, go for the previously mentioned fair or bair or nair, whatever is open, and try to combo them. If you go top platform and they go side, they should be able to land before you can get there with a hit box. So you can do a really spaced fair as you fall next to (but not on top of) the platform. If they are good at shield dropping, they might be able to hit you if you challenge the side platform tech. But it's your life man. If they can't shield drop, you can do anything. I enjoy landing slightly behind them with a nair or back air into either fall through aerials and fancy fake awesome combos, but all the spacies in my life have perfect shield drops. So. I'm kinda screwed there.

Another common situation that can ruin a good stock is the fox edge guard. If they're bright enough to be on the ledge with invincibility when you grapple, you're probably gonna want to wall jump into an up b. They can still cover it with a get up off ledge into a forward smash, but you can be ambiguous with your drift and fast fall to avoid that. Wall jump bomb is the mixup if they get good at covering the up b, but the lack of invincibility makes it a little inferior. Always funny when it hits someone and kills them tho. But just don't get shine spiked. Be real cautious when recovering versus a good fox. Marth has something similar where if he's on the ledge he can bair your grapple on reaction. Just means you need to mix up timing and positioning.

That's just a handful clearly, there are plenty more especially in neutral with um every matchup, when edgeguarding um every character, and when converting off of platform canceled fairs, upairs, and up bs since there are so many different reaction options when a spacie is floating around in hit stun between platforms.

If the one person who read this far has any questions or conversational points on how to deal with microsituations, just communicate homie.


MORE RANDOM FUN CRAP WE SHOULD ALL DO MORE OR LESS OK?:



Stop bomb z canceling. It's not cool, it might get you a few percent or if you're reaaaalllly lucky a dair into conversions, but what'll probably happen is you'll either get hit and then woah you don't have that part of samus' recovery that makes it really good (!!!) or they'll shield real quick and punish you. If you have to do it (sigh) at least space it right. Never happens, but like... god it's just so unsafe. Anyone who knows what it looks like will say ok dude and then punish you.

Bomb pressure: can be good, but it's overhyped. Possible to break shields, but it shouldn't happen unless opponent is unfamiliar with samus bombs. Usually can just roll out or do OOS options. Love dropping two bombs real quick and getting up smashed oos by fox! (Also don't use bombs on species unless they're terrified in their coward shield caves and you want to apply mental pressure.) Imo bomb is best used for that pressure when you're either doing spaced ftilts/jabs while intelligently weaving from the front to back of enemy character or for the mental pressure to let them know you can do janky waveshines. Also useful on shield when the opponent is in a position with limited movement options, they should roll, and if you're really cool, you can react or read with the bomb wave dash into a down smash punish or a grab or up b or whatever the hell you guys like to do to people.

Bomb on platty shield is cool af, but also super overhyped imo, especially with shield drops. Don't want a stupid woodland critter to get a free back air into ya know whatever his sweaty hands want just because I wanted to whip my schlong out and rub it on the platform.

If you're playing with someone terrified of breathing or someone who doesn't know how to shield drop, I guess you can bomb waveland into shield pressure or grab. But like um you should probably ya know teach your friend how to shield drop. If you don't know how, get you a good controller homie and grind your heart out. Cause it's real good

Additionally, for god sake, learn to aerial interrupt. It's not as good as everyone wants it to be, cause you just kinda end up in a corner unless they let you ftilt them or something, but at the very least you refresh your grapple. It's pretty pivotal at this point. Mix it up with no impact lands, reaaaal situationally, wavedash on up b, reaaaaal situationally, ledge hop fair, don't spam it anyone who has ever heard the name samus knows she wants to use this move off the ledge,


BREAKING SAMUS' UTTER DEPENDENCE ON WAVEDASH WITH POWER SHIELDS, PIVOTS, AND CROUCHING




I've got a theory that in certain mus samus' best mobility is grounded. Her crouch dashback is faster than.. not god but maybe like gods cousin or something idk, and her dash can be extended by crouch dashback. Nothing cooler than a samus running across the stage and then turning around and running to the other side of the stage!!! Or, more importantly, doing cross ups on shield or movement baits that give you a different positional advantage than a wavedash will (essentially movement mixups).

Also, you can um ya know crouch into moves. Great for tech chasing with down tilt and movement mixups into a run toward opponent crouch spaced ftilt or jab is a real solid aggressive mixup in a lot of matchups.

Also good for I find that a lot of the time, samus' hit stun and the trajectory of her opponent lines up perfectly (srsly, almost frame perfect it's insane) with the time it takes samus to read an option coverage. Fur exempy, you down smash a medium percent fox on yoshis and he flies over to the other side of the stage like a loonytoon, immediate dashback sprint toward the opposite ledge usually coincides with the time it takes a fox or falco to fantasm, in which case you can crouch out of run into a sexy ftilt, or up b, in which case you can ya know run toward the ledge and turn around onto it like a pimp, up tilt, fair, nair, or bair, depending on your read of their movement. But man I'd just grab ledge if time permitted and try to nair, bair, aerial interrupt cover, or ledge get up them foxy foxes until they DIE.

But for real guys, and this is so pivitol, we gotta step up that pivot game. Samus pivot ftilt is one of her most OP options, especially on shield cross ups and idk something like spaced jab pivot ftilt or fsmash. To be honest I totally abandoned my calculated shield pressure game cause I was having way too much fun with pivots, but uh don't be like me. Use both. Don't just pivot all day it's kind of stupid.

But basically what this does is give samus a really good retreating backward move, almost like having a really long weak falco bair. Is wonderful, gents. Just ya know don't be dumb with your pivots, if you can get them down consistently.

All deez things in conjunction with power shield make samus way less dependent on wavedash. Powershield up b is reactable as hell, powershield grab is easy af and even more guaranteed on get up attacks, up smash, etc and easily reactable since you were gonna ya know um grab anyway weren't you dude??? (Assuming you're not in a position to capitalize super hard from our dope azz down attacks y'all). Power shield down smash is just... so great, at least unless a spacie manages to shine invincibly while you sit there with your immediate down smash neither getting hit by the shine nor down smashing them all like, REALLY FRUSTRATED and such. Actually happened to me. Much disappointment. But even then grab can be way better if the spacie is both lowish percent on a good grab conversion stage and if you have absolute confidence in your grab combos. But dsmash if they have really bad DI for some weird reason or if it'll fly em off the ledge to gimp city y'all. Yee haw.

But if you can power shield, pivot, crouch cancel your runs into dashback, etc, youve got yourself a viable complementary movement option besides wavedash. It's real good boys, makes wavedash mostly useful for oos punishes on lag moves and to get under characters like falcon when they're throwing feet at your beautiful cyborg face, or whatever samus even is. Most important imo is pivots in general, just cause it gives you a really good mixup option for oos reads and baits. Doing two spaced pivot f smashes in a row on a shield is both mildly bad and incredibly humorous, and it almost always works. Throw an ftilt in there and they just get gosh dang confused, bless their little brains. Practice my friends. Practice it. It's really not that bad, esp fsmash and, eh, d smash I suppose but uh don't get too ambitious.

So yeah. Read it or don't. Whatever. Samus is just really, really good in a lot of ways. Way more than are listed here. But these are some common things I don't see enough of, and I want more of it in my life. So cmon guys. Get better.
 

343

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Dec 4, 2012
Messages
433
Location
Norcal
Let me try to summarize what i just read:
1. learn throw followups (pretty sure there are actually 0 real throw followups on peach btw, and you can dthrow -> dtilt or dsmash sheik at low %, even on di away!)
2. edgecancel your moves and combo out of them ("platform cancel" usually refers to dropping from a platform with an aerial and then landing on the platform because your ecb updated)
2.5. practice platform movement (especially remember to fastfall)
3. learn how to play neutral vs spacies
3.5. learn how to edgeguard spacies
4. bomb gimmick less often (don't totally agree but I can see where you're coming from)
4.5. aerial interrupting is important even if it doesn't get you out of the corner for free like fox's insane ledgedash
5. practice ground movement that isn't wavedashing (crouch dash and pivots in particular)

Of course, you went into quite a bit more detail than this summary, especially on the more general points like 1/3/3.5, so the summary doesn't do full justice to your post; sorry about that.

I won't say I agree with everything you said, and it was sort of hard to read such a long stream-of-consciousness post, but I can agree with the spirit behind each point at least. Thanks for the post, but try formatting it better next time :p
 

Narfanator

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Jun 6, 2005
Messages
84
Location
San Francisco
Slippi.gg
NARF#806
Doing another summary because I was triggered by "gimmick":

-If you back throw a sucka off the stage, follow ups are missle/chargeshot or jump after them and hit them with something

-If you up throw them to a platform, just dair them 'cause if you miss you can follow up with a neutral move on the platform or...

-Platform drop onto those suckas, if they edge cancel or somehow DI away from the platform, with some move, but nair is best, and cover nair with missle/chargeshot or d/fsmash or dtilt jump (or no jump) >chargeshot 'cause a lot could happen

-The previous wouldn't matter if dair connects and they bounce/tech/miss-tech so ready an aerial move if that's the case

-If you're sleeping on the kid when you up throw, go for the nair since it's the safest

-If you up b them onto the top platform and you can edge-cancel towards the center, jump>some aerial can work

-Platform/edge-canceling aerials leads to another instant aerial

-Move faster, but be precise by practicing platform drop> aerial move

-Uair followed up by fair works and FF to put shield pressure or charge shot

-Make sure to chase/FF after aerial moves are done

-Remember shield poke with dtilt and uptilt underneath a platform pops up suckas and can lead to somethinh

-Don't stay under a platform near the edge since sucks, like fox, can jump over you and back air

-Power shield lasers and follow up with wd forwad > ftilt - space permitting

-You're vulnerable when grappling

-Don't cancel grapple with bomb since you'll lose grapple.

-Bomb pressure vs samus noobs, otherwise delay after bomb can be punished

-Learn aerial interrupt with follow up moves

-Respect the crouch since it allows for quick direction change and moves

-"PIVOT! PIVOT! PIVOT" - Ross from Friends

..........................end of summary...................now adding more stuff to show bombs are not a gimmick


-When you're flying across the screen and you know you'll need to jump to survive, opt for a bomb to stop your momentum instead. If you're flying at the speed of light combine the two - jump then bomb as fast as possible.

-If you get spiked, go for a bomb to stop momentum, then another bomb to jump, then raising grapple, or whatever you can do.

-I hate to think of samus' bombs like Snake's bombs in the other smash game where he buries it and detonates it later, but I can't shake the thought off my mind. Drop a bomb or two and play around their position while having the option to bomb jump off them.

-Brave players will attack the bomb and scared players will avoid them, but either way it'll establish some position

-I saw somewhere that you can MC into bomb, but the reverse is true too. Don't be afraid to follow up a high bomb drop with a MC/smash/aerial

-When you're comfortable with your trajectory after laying a bomb, you'll be able to bounce off extended hit boxes. Take advantage of the few pixels of invincibility and bounce off opponent attacks.



Bombs are misunderstood, yo....so is up smash, but that's future lab work. :bluejump:
 

wmd93

Smash Rookie
Joined
Mar 15, 2017
Messages
10
Full disclosure: was pretty ****ed up when I wrote this, hence... the formatting and mere existence of this post.

General point still stands, though. Seems like the samus community at large is focusing on the wrong things. We saw how quickly she could move when plup popped into the scene. You don't have to rely on slow wave dash/cc based neutral alone; while counter attacking and ground based game play is a staple aspect of samus' arsenal, there are other tools we can utilize to optimize her playstyle.

It's a diverse moveset, and it includes the things that our community discusses, like our downsmash tech chases on the conservative side or bomb "gimmicks/glitches" on the extravagant side, but I think we need to try to find some bridge between the patient style exhibited by hugs and slightly less so by duck and the speed of plup or classic IHSB type players.

I.e. You don't have to play slow to play safely.

Samus is a pretty okay character all things considered, but she has the benefit of a reasonable matchup spread. While some are tough, all are doable. If we can streamline power shield options, like ps downsmash/relavent aerials/up b/grab, we limit enemy approach options and essentially make crouch cancel available at all percents.

And if we implement constant platform cancels, we drastically increase her movement and input speed and create an array of new microsituations for follow ups.

Basically, we can reconcile speed and defense to even out most of the mus. Gotta move faster, guys, and focus more on our few aggressive options rather than constant telegraphed counter attacking
 

killerrobo

Smash Cadet
Joined
Jan 20, 2007
Messages
26
Location
Rochester/Western NY
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