DeliciousCake ZSS matches

[DeliciousCake]

I'm going to start uploading more vids here.

3/24/08
DeliciousCake (ZSS) vs. Dave (Metaknight)
DeliciousCake (ZSS) vs. DEVL (Pit)
DeliciousCake (ZSS) vs. Josh (Ike)
DeliciousCake (ZSS) vs. Nava (Ike)
DeliciousCake (ZSS) vs. Nava (Ike) #2
DeliciousCake (ZSS) vs. Masahiro (Toon Link)
DeliciousCake (ZSS) vs. Masahiro (Toon Link) #2 (My only loss!)

3/26/08 (Will be posted after YouTube stops doing maintenance.) Tonight I was trying to incorporate more combo's and edgeguarding. As such, I just starting sucking. The few wins I managed were mostly luck.

 

[MprisM]

Not bad, but not absolutely amazing, you seem to have a fairly predictable style and you dont keep much pressure with your tilts or aerials.

I noticed that 90% of the time you jump from the ledge, I really don't understand why, nor do I understand the grapple regrabs since that puts you at a disadvantage. If you want to hang on the edge for a bit, use down B or drop and regrab the ledge.

Also ledgehopping aerials can be pretty effective, if you time it right you can lead well into a fair, or if you DI right you can get a well spaced nair.

That being said you do however play a very safe game with ZSS, which is something that I'm not very good at. I also admire some of your upB and usmash uses. In the match against the first Ike player he decided to DI towards ZSS so that you could up B him immediately out of the dthrow. This was mindboggling, I cant figure out why he did this at all, and you should tell him not to.

I saw you attempt the fthrow chain grab a few times, and I'd like to prove my point that this isnt a very effective technique, all your opponents escaped it with a jump except the Pit, in which it took him a few throws to figure out. And I think there may have been another time it worked, but only because the opponent decided to roll out of it instead of jump, although stepdodging is also an option.

You go for a lot of grabs and sometimes they miss, your opponents usually didnt punish you, but they can do so easily, in one of the matches against Nava you missed a grab and he jab combo'd you, if he felt like it there was actually time for him to fsmash you, which would have resulted in a quick kill.

This is why I dislike the potential chain grab technique, if they want to, they can REALLY punish you for missing a grab.

Thats all I can think of for now, you did a good job, keep practicing bro. =D

 

[KeeKeeKee]

Nice stuff man. Kind of going with what MprisM's said- try not to get too predictable. I like your use of the blaster (Ike match 1 had a really nice one)- you got some good extra hits in paralyzing where my instincts would have driven me to just attack.

I didn't watch all the videos so I may be entirely off base here- but it seems like the only down-b (or at least a great majority) was used as ledge recovery, and almost every single time, you attacked out of it. Try to shake things up a little bit. You can use it on ground as a charge/retreat tactic (dash and reverse down-b) on the ground, recovery from hanging on a ledge.

Maybe a bit too much forward-B spamming (don't forget about degeneration) and too little uair action going on. I saw a couple of good juggle opportunities disappear because you opted for the up-B instead.

... the way you play your Zamus, it looks like you should consider B-sticking. Haha, really, any Zamus should seriously consider B-sticking. The possibilities it gives you with your forward-b alone is enough- advancing into a retreating attack, retreating into an advancing attack, ledge hopping while moving back away from the ledge... and most importantly, upBsticking makes it a lot easier to land it on arial opponents. And if you're holding the joystick away from the ledge and you b-stick up, you won't auto-sweet spot. This can lead to some nice, easy, throw-linked KOs. (Fthrow off ledge, chase, upb spike, tether, edgehog.)

Good stuff.

 

[DeliciousCake]

... the way you play your Zamus, it looks like you should consider B-sticking. Haha, really, any Zamus should seriously consider B-sticking. The possibilities it gives you with your forward-b alone is enough- advancing into a retreating attack, retreating into an advancing attack, ledge hopping while moving back away from the ledge... and most importantly, upBsticking makes it a lot easier to land it on arial opponents. And if you're holding the joystick away from the ledge and you b-stick up, you won't auto-sweet spot. This can lead to some nice, easy, throw-linked KOs. (Fthrow off ledge, chase, upb spike, tether, edgehog.)

Good stuff.

Don't plug b-sticking, I would never trade my dashing U-smash for a small wavebounce and killing myself off the edge.

Forward-B is a spacing technique and I don't actually hit with it all that much, unless I'm particularly looking for a kill.

I don't use Down-B as an actual attack because when you start playing against competent opponents they know the trajectory of your jump and will proceed to space and punish you. Also, it's not exactly easy to just use it against someone like Toon Link or Ike who can easily out prioritize it.

Also, you probably didn't notice it, I use my Up-air all the ****ing time.

At MprisM: The point of re-grappling is that it's a stall technique that provides you with extra invincibility frames. You get them when you initially grab with the tether and you get them when you grab the actual ledge from the tether. In our doubles matches that weren't recorded I managed to get a couple kills from people trying to chase me under the stage and killing themselves after I re-grabbed the edge.

I don't try and use the chain grab that much because when your opponent is expecting a D-throw they start prepping their DI and won't be ready for a F-throw. I already let these guys in on the chain-grabbing technique so they were ready for it, and I was in the process of testing it in an actual battle. Also, I enjoy grabbing in general

Nava and Masa are good players, and they force you to play safe or they WILL punish you, so pressuring them is difficult. Yes, I tend to miss grabs a bit, but the few times I do miss is worth the rest of them that hit and lead into combos. All that being said, the only other really competent player there last night was Dave, and I only got matched up against him once.

As I've watched various replays of myself playing matches as ZSS, I've seen my playstyle drastically evolve into what it is now, and I'm sure that it'll end up being quite different in the next couple of weeks.

Thanks for the input and sorry if I sounded like an *** at points I'm probably just not used to constructive criticism.

 

[KeeKeeKee]

Haha, I totally see where you're coming from and sorry if I made bsticking seem like it's the ONLY way to go, but I've just found that Zamus is a little easier to play with a bstick. And actually, thanks for defending your side B spamming- I should probably mix that into my game.

Just saying- cstick is absolutely not necessary for dashing usmash. If that's all you're using it for, then at least TRY messing with some other styles before completely shutting it down. I depend on b-sticking to get spike kills close to the edge- it's the only way I've found so far to use your up-b within range of sweet-spotting without ACTUALLY sweetspotting, which means you can chase a fthrow or backthrow with a large ranged spike. Just trying to spread the word.

 

[DeliciousCake]

I (used to) use my C-stick for D-smashing a lot. I say used to because like I mentioned earlier I've evolved my playstyle, one thing that gradually disappeared was the want to hit opponents with my D-smash in order to get a combo going. I use my c-stick for tilts and f-smashing also.

 

[k4polo]

As KeKeke mentioned. I believe B sticking will be very crucial for ZSS IMO.

My thread here on b sticking
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=156891

My thread here on ZSS Maximum Recovery with b sticking.
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=154740
RoboticClaw agrees that this type of recovery is very effective.

The key is to perfect b sticking WITHOUT changing your c stick to special. This is explained in my guide. B sticking Side B will seem to only improve your defense and recovery.

What I am thinking is the mix up of jumping side B,Jumping b stick side B, short hop b sticking side B, Standing Side B.

B sticking side B allow for a short hop side b that hits grounded opponent which a short hop regularly side B cannot hit effectively. So you can do this wavebounce side B directly Above the opponent and score a hit as she moves backwards.

B sticking UP B is useful as it cover alot of horizontal range with UP B. (she move backwards while doing the move). Since you use UP B alot, this seems to be a very good use to you since you can catch DIing opponents. So you set your c stick to special and practice with it,see the uses of it and play around, then practice without it.

The UP B b sticking without c stick is difficult but the b sticking side b is not to hard. At my point, I have my c stick set to smash and I B stick very effectively. If you can keep your c stick to smash and master B sticking regularly, then you will be a great player. I need to work more myself on it though.

I can see tourney experts doing this as those guys will nail hard stuff like this with ease. If you can RAR you can b stick as it is the same technique.

 

[FadedImage]

Don't plug b-sticking

The point of re-grappling is that it's a stall technique that provides you with extra invincibility frames. You get them when you initially grab with the tether and you get them when you grab the actual ledge from the tether. In our doubles matches that weren't recorded I managed to get a couple kills from people trying to chase me under the stage and killing themselves after I re-grabbed the edge.

The problem is, you aren't even abusing the main point of the tether stall. When you reel in your tether and get those invincibility frames, you can drop from the ledge while you are still invincible (unlike a regular ledge grab). This leads to invincible ledgehopped attacks, mainly uair/fair.

This was already mentioned, but your juggling could be better. Often you opt for an up-b when you could have easily connected with an uair, or you just abandon it and wait for their descent.

As far as grabbing goes, I think ZSS is garbage at it. I only like to grab paralyzed opponents, but I guess that's just me. The time it takes to come out is long enough to jab her out of a shield grab, and if you miss you're basically screwed.

In short: doing good, just gotta improve your offensive pressure.

 

[Ørion]

I only watched the first video, but after that and reading everyone else's posts, I think (or hope) that I have a decent idea of your strategy. Overall, very good zamus playing, I liked the footstool jump, I haven't ever been able to incorporate this into my game. I agree with Keekeekee that you had some golden opportunities for the uair, that could have KOd your opponent. I would take advantage of this, as zamus's is incredible. Overall, very nicely done. Keep up the good brawling.

 

[Eten]

Zamus is complicated, so I'll leave the other things that are commented on in this thread out of my post. Instead, I'd like to say something about what I didn't see. Edgeguarding techniques, spiking, and gimping people for kills. I don't think it's intuitive compared to some characters with multiple second jumps, but Zamus has the moveset off the stage to really put this to use. It's hard to describe all the details, but things like jumping off the stage, down-b being a third jump followed by the down-b first frames spike(works brilliantly with courses that have water, it's very powerful), second jump back, or jump out, second jump out, either get them off the blastline with a bair of fair or make them drop low and tether edgehog their recovery. With a third jump that can spike w/ a sex-kick like attack, fast aerial speed, powerful jump and second jump, and a very very fast, longest range tether and they all can be used in any order Zamus has a lot more potential off the stage than what I saw you using.

 

[k4polo]

hmm saw some vids.You are decent. I like the way you combo into various moves. I am not that proficient yet but I get there.

 

[Cynan Machae]

I really like your spacing play, that'S something I really need to work on. I still have to watch the two Ike videos vs Nava, but so far it's pretty good. Anyway, Up-smash using is pretty good. Only thing I would say, is that you rely a bit much on side-B for a killing move, and you already use it a lot so it's not very useful anymore. I don't remeber which game, but you hit 3 times with the Side-B when the opponent was above 110% and it didn't even kill for all 3 hit, even when he was at like 145%+. You finally killed him with an Uair tho. But maybe rely less on side B to kill, or use it less to build up damage. But yea I agree, it's a great spacing tool, and myself I think I use it quite a lot for the same reasons.