EXTENNNDUURRRRRR (samus gen. disc.)

[bubbaking]

I have a question for HugS

If anyone else knows the answer, feel free to post it. in pp's thread a few weeks ago HugS remarked that he had trouble dealing with zhu's laser--> shinegrab, lasergrab, and laser-->shine-->aerial mixups. My question is what does shine grab-shine aerial add to that mixup? Like what would samus do differently between shinegrab and shine retreating aerial if she knew which one falco was going to do? Doesn't upb OoS beat both?

Well, sure up-b oos beats both but what can one do after up-b? HugS may be looking for combos meaning he might be looking for a chance to safely wd oos rather than up-b. I feel like if falco was gonna shinegrab, samus could wd whereas it wouldn't work if falco aerial'd.....or maybe that's vice versa. Idk. What I DO know from experience is that up-b oos does not always beat the shine aerial. Sometimes, it trades and Samus only gives the spacee 1% while the spacee not only gives Samus greater damage but is also in a good position to add more hits.

Edit: Thanks for the info Pi! Also, I did not notice that HugS had already responded to that question. Man, I'm reading everything rather late, aren't I? XP

 

[bubbaking]

i don't know
what to say

except for that i just tested to see which of samus moves hits the most below the edge
and the results were
dtilt & utilt > dsmash > dangled fsmash (the most dangle u can go, there are 2 types, the lesser of the downward angled ones don't go below, the furthest down angled does) > d angled ftilt (i only tried this once cause i g2g work i'll try it some more to see if there are more angles)

lol dangle

no sleep bout to get my 40hrs lets do itttttt!!

No surprise there. You remember that Samus edgeguard hitboxes video right? That utilt was godly. :OOO Was also surprised at how well grounded nair covered the ledge.

 

[Pi]

bubba so cute

just go add onto that/correct some potential misunderstanding
the UB OoS should not trade, if done correctly

assuming you initiate the UB From the ground, aka, cancel ur jump animation
you go from being vulnerable (ur vulnerable for at least 1 frame and at most 2 frames if u are actually canceling ur jump OoS), to being invincible, with the hitbox coming out before ur invincibility ends
seen here:

so basically what happens when u UB OoS is this, if u do it right
You go from shielding
To vulnerable for 1 to 2 frames
To invulnerable for 5 frames
Hitbox comes out on frame 5, leaving no room for trades
and then on frame 6, there is a possibility for a trade
so unless the opponent is out of range on frame 5, and then in range to hit/trade with u on frame 6-8 or so, however long ur in the area, you shouldn't be trading

of course melee is very complex and there are situations in which trades can occur and etc. etc.

[edit] hitbox is out on frame 4 and 5 apparently, all while invulnerable

 

[bubbaking]

So the mixup is about what happens after the laser, not as much what happens after the shine?

I've heard both that you can and that you can't up b between shine and aerial/grab, i think you can, but Im unsure.

Would a falco who can't shine grab consistently be able to keep you adequately guessing with just laser--> shine-->aerial and lasergrab, or would laser shine grab also be necessary?

I appreciate the quick response, and I'm sorry if I misunderstood it.

According to what Pi just told me, you should be able to upB between the shine and whatever the following action is. Going by what HugS told us about the basis of the falco laser mixup, falco ONLY needs lasergrab to keep you guessing. In other words, because Falco can do ANYTHING after a laser, you can't afford to oversimplify things. For instance, in the context of your question, if you tried to act ahead of time to avoid the lasergrab, you could eat a shine, but on the flipside, if you tried to stay in shield just a bit longer to avoid that shine, you could end up grabbed right after the laser. In fact, as HugS put it earlier, the falco could just laser>wd back to bait your upB. So yeah, I'm prety sure Falco can keep you guessing with just that lagless laser alone. There's a reason Falco's so good, and I really don't think the shine's main cause for that.

laser...pressure...?

Infer from above. It's pressure alright. >:/

"long enough range to powershield" ~_~? You do realize that the laser comes out before he lands is so all SHLs are always powershieldable.

and all that other stuff is very true, but the very same kind of thinking held true when wavedashing was new. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't use it or at least try to implement it to your game.

Especially since in your case, you were shielding the laser either way, then why not try to powershield it? The reward completely rules out him doing lasers and failure puts you at roughly the same disadvantage.

If reading and exploiting habits is all you do and you dont focus on trying to limit your opponent or beating their RPS entirely then why arent you playing Bowser? And you know, exploiting the laser shl range is imo, best done by removing their best option by, you know, powershielding.

The laser does not necessarily come out long enough before he lands for you to punish, or at least fight back, with powershield. Remember, the reason Falco can sh lasers lower than standing lasers is that he can time it to release in the few frames (maybe the last frame?) before he lands (at the shins). Even if the powershield were to be successful, if he was within grab range, he could simply give himself grab invincibility by grabbing you. I have to disagree with you when you say "failure puts one at roughly the same disadvantage." If a laser actually hits (instead of being shielded) because I was too inconsistent at reacting withing a 4-frame window, it can translate into combos. Not sure that I get the Bowser reference...

Since he said grab range, which in my mind means that the falco will land in grab range at the end of his SH. In that case, you have plenty of time to decide if its an laser approach (it takes 14+ frames to come out) or a dair/nair.

You can also WD back / walk back out of his Dair/Nair range if you have the stage to do it so that you can punish his aerial (if he chooses to do that) and his lasers (chasing with a approaching SHL when the opponent is baiting you by retreating is a extremely effective tactic if you arent good at powershielding, where it instead becomes a rare mixup)

edit: her edgeguarding hitboxes are so much worse than I thought :/

"Plenty of time".....you make it seem like it's easy to react in less than a quarter of a second (15 frames). Also, I'm not too knowledgeable on this; what exactly does Samus have that is fast enough to punish a SHFFL'd nair/dair from falco if she used time to wd back first? Also, I don't think I understand what you meant after the aerial part...

 

[bubbaking]

I promise this will be my last post on this thread for the next 5 hours...

If falcos shl approach and you know from the spacing of it that they're going to shinegrab/grab then just nair oos. The hitbox on it is perfect for halting that kind of approach, and isn't as punishable as a missed up-b. But since falco is basically lagless out of shl he can simply dash back or do some mixup that still requires you to guess to some extent.

Um, I don't think Samus can nair oos fast enough to stop the lasergrab, let alone the shinegrab AFTER the shine (try it before and you just ate the shine). I honestly think upB oos is Samus's most legitimate option against an approaching spacee.

[edit]
just tested to see if utilt will hit a fox sweet spot UB
process wass;
fox, release edge, and fall for 34 frames
start his UB on frame 35 (no directions beind held)
on frame 29 of his moving UB, is the peak of his climb, after this the UB stops and he starts to tumble far below reach
so i timed samus Utilt to hit at it's lowest point, frame 17, to hit exactly when he is at the peak (frame 29)
and it did hit him

some variables i'd rather not test;
having him just 'fall' probably isn't perfect, because he accelerates more and more, so shining some where in between his decent and trying different spacing that way may change how close i can actually get to the ledge

utilt vs. this ss UB is already very close so even a couple pixels variance could determine him getting hit from not getting hit

BUT within reason, fox is going to have an extremely hard time out spacing Utilt with his UB, if u miss it it's more likely to u mistiming it
though in our defense, it's only at it's lowest point for 1 frame before it ends =\
fsmash stays out longer, but doesn't reach nearly as low

I'm tellin' you, that utilt edgeguard on Samus is pretty sick! >:D But wouldn't it be kinda impossible to get the Fox if it perfectly sweetspotted, even if we timed the utilt to be at its lowest point right when he reached the ledge?

 

[HugS™]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrfEkufDQDQ

This is pretty ****, Pi.

HugS, can you react to the laser hitting your shield and preemptively use a safer, less punishable ooS option, like shnair out of shield, or wd back out of shield?

Depends on the distance between you and falco, And the startup on a Nair OOS hasn't always been very appealing to me, but it could be just as beneficial as an upB I guess, in a different kind of way.

 

[bubbaking]

Stages

What stages do you suggest against a good Falco? Dreamland and DK 64?

 

[Pi]

I'm tellin' you, that utilt edgeguard on Samus is pretty sick! >:D But wouldn't it be kinda impossible to get the Fox if it perfectly sweetspotted, even if we timed the utilt to be at its lowest point right when he reached the ledge?

that's what i tried to re-create by having the fox fall for 34 frames, then UBing on the 35th frame
if i waited to UB on the 36 frame, he didn't make it
so 35 was as long as i could wait, so in my little test that was as sweet spot as i could get
and samus was still able to hit him
but as i mentioned, if i could some how calibrate distance better, and use shine to slow his decent i may be able to go a LITTLE LITTLE bit lower, because he wouldn't be accelerating as fast (aka covering as much distance in between frames)
which MAY allow him to sweet spot under the utilt

but that situation is so rare as it is, that Utilt should 99% of the time be able to hit fox's UB if timed correctly.

 

[Ørn]

What stages do you suggest against a good Falco? Dreamland and DK 64?

I used to think stages like that were good for Samus. You know, large stages where you'd be able to survive for longer.

However, the more I play, the more inclined I am to actually pick what Falcos normally counterpick - FD or Yoshi's.

Yoshi's is just really good for constantly keeping him under pressure while he's unable to run away, and in my opinion, Samus moves extremely well on that stage. You can safely UpB to the top platform, too. Survivability is an issue though; getting shined off the top sucks. I would gladly trade that bit of survivability for not having to deal with all his other bull****, though.

On FD, tech chasing is generally pretty easy, as is edgeguarding. Plus, you have a bunch of ******** grab combos on him, which is nice. Samus actually survives pretty well on this stage, too. Just watch out that he doesn't set the pace of the match and lasers you into a bunch of easy aerials/whatever.

IMO, Dreamland 64 is kind of an overrated counterpick for Samus. Sure, she survives for ages, but the platforms do not really compliment her play style at all. Plus, it's large enough that Falco can just choose the pace of the match by a combination of platform camping and/or laser camping. In short, I'm not a big fan of it.

I imagine it's the same with KJ64, though it'd probably be significantly easier to edgeguard Falco there. I haven't actually played that stage in a tournament setting in ages.

Battlefield is alright against Falco, IMO it's fairly neutral in all matchups. You can still UpB to the middle platform, and the edges work against him, so that's pretty cool. FoD is kind of a mixed bag, I'd probably prefer Battlefield to it. I rarely go there vs. Falco, so I can't say too much about it.

Your mileage may vary, though. I imagine Dreamland is really good for beginners, while it progressively gets worse depending on how good your opponent is.

I'd actually be interested in hearing what other Samus players have to say about this matter though, as I don't really recall seeing it discussed anywhere.

 

[bubbaking]

I imagine it's the same with KJ64, though it'd probably be significantly easier to edgeguard Falco there. I haven't actually played that stage in a tournament setting in ages.

I've used KJ64 in a tourney setting and imo, KJ64 is a fairly good Samus counterpick not only because of the extremely large blastzones. If need be, Samus can kind of camp and such, and not only onstage too. Samus can actually bomb jump to wait for that barrel on the bottom; it's almost impossible to miss. Those high platforms on the sides also allow her to recover back to the stage in more ways than one and Falco can't chase her there w/out commiting to both jumps. The fact that the stage is "transparent" (don't know what word to use) is also pretty helpful to Samus 'cause you could always jump/upB through the stage if neither the edge nor the high platforms are viable. The middle two platforms make upB a bit safer and that dip in the middle of the stage allows Samus to avoid lasers to an extent w/out jumping (although they kind of screw up her missiles too).

In addition to KJ64, I honestly think Brinstar could be a solid counterpick. Yes, the ceiling seems low, but I think it's higher than Yoshi's. On top of that, Samus's bomb jump again allows Samus to stall offstage while waiting for the acid (assuming you can't really recover any other way and are in serious danger of dying off the bottom). Additionally, another carry-over advantage from KJ64 is the stage "transparency", allowing Samus to seriously mixup her recover game while making Falco easier to gimp. Platforms make upB safe and non-linear terrain screws w/ Falco's lasers but not really w/ Samus's missiles. Finally, there's not much room for Falco to run away. I'm not exactly sure how the 'interactive' objects would feature in this matchup though. I feel like splitting the stage would help stalling Samuses more than anything but wouldn't really do much for anything else, and I don't have anything on the other two cord/pillar things.

 

[Ørn]

I'm not sure why you think it is better for Samus' recovery when you lose your best recovering tool on those stages: grapple beam.

 

[Pi]

i like KJ64 too and feel like the barrel almost if not does make up for her missing grapple beam
she can definitely abuse it more than other chars
also, people not being able to sweet spot is pretty good since her recovery isn't limited to having to grab the the ledge, and they often are

vs. marth especially i like it, because he can't juggle you on this stage

ur points seem pretty legit bubba

it'd be nice to have good CP's as samus that don't rely on us just 'living forever'

things that i think have potential, a lot of it:
shield dropping
wave bombing
pivot dsmash

 

[Moooose]

duck is pretty good. beat sfat and dart, took games off lovage and s2j.

 

[standardtoaster]

I enjoyed watching duck and rat team.

 

[bubbaking]

What tourney was this? And thanks pi! :D

 

[MonkUnit]

The Big House. Midwest regional which attracted west coast players such as Lovage and s2j, as well as Canadian players like Raynex, KirbyKaze, etc.

 

[AntoPark]

I was watching the stream with zhu and he had nice things to say about Duck! DUCK. If you're reading this, are you korean?

 

[zDuck]

I was watching the stream with zhu and he had nice things to say about Duck! DUCK. If you're reading this, are you korean?

no I'm taiwanese

 

[Pi]

no ur a duck

 

[ihavespaceblondes]

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

But... but... but... Its monday not saturday!

 

[Pi]

samus worse matchups in order
sheik
c.falc
marth/puff
ganon
link/y.link

discuss

 

[Dobs1007]

samus worse matchups in order
sheik
c.falc
marth/puff
ganon
link/y.link

discuss

AGREED Dead on imo at least

 

[Ørn]

I personally think Puff is worse than Marth. Hell, even Ganon might be worse than Marth.

I dunno about the Links. I know they're comparatively good against Samus, but they're still pretty bad characters...

I'd probably put Falco above those.

 

[Pi]

ganon is a joke of a character

 

[Ørn]

Agreed. If I'm playing any other character, I think Ganon is one of the easiest characters in the game to play against.

 

[Pi]

there was a time when i felt about marth the way i feel about cfalc right now
i hope that i learn to love the cfalc matchup like i love the marth one

let's discuss how to hurt c.falc shall we?

 

[-Philip Coast Philip-]

bubba so cute

just go add onto that/correct some potential misunderstanding
the UB OoS should not trade, if done correctly

assuming you initiate the UB From the ground, aka, cancel ur jump animation
you go from being vulnerable (ur vulnerable for at least 1 frame and at most 2 frames if u are actually canceling ur jump OoS), to being invincible, with the hitbox coming out before ur invincibility ends
seen here:

so basically what happens when u UB OoS is this, if u do it right
You go from shielding
To vulnerable for 1 to 2 frames
To invulnerable for 5 frames
Hitbox comes out on frame 5, leaving no room for trades
and then on frame 6, there is a possibility for a trade
so unless the opponent is out of range on frame 5, and then in range to hit/trade with u on frame 6-8 or so, however long ur in the area, you shouldn't be trading

of course melee is very complex and there are situations in which trades can occur and etc. etc.

[edit] hitbox is out on frame 4 and 5 apparently, all while invulnerable

those bottom two hitboxes lead to what we call samus' shine.

 

[Dobs1007]

When Scar was in Philly still he gave me some advice on match up. Most of the time if u roll you want to roll through Cfalcon rather then away when getting comboed di everything away an upwards... Idk matchup is hard ill post some more stuff on it later. Also with up b u want to do reverse up b and head to spot u inititiated it from or try to edge cancel it so you don't get punished...

 

[TheCrimsonBlur]

Curious Marth main question:

Where do you Samuses generally strike and ban vs. Peach? Where do you expect the Peach to strike, and what stage does game 1 usually play on?

 

[Ørn]

I don't play against a lot of Peaches, but I usually strike Dreamland and FoD. The former makes the matchup even more campy than it already is, and Peach just benefits too much from FoD's lowered platforms.

I would probably ban one of those stages too.

I think most of my games start out on Battlefield.

 

[Pi]

i ban FoD
and peach usually bans stadium? idk or dreamland
i like BF vs. peach cause on the off chance the edges **** w/ them lol

 

[THE RED SPARROW]

Playing the Samus vs Peach match on Kongo Jungle 64 makes me want to kill myself.

 

[Pi]

do so
4 times
then move onto the next match lol

 

[bubbaking]

samus worse matchups in order
sheik
c.falc
marth/puff
ganon
link/y.link

discuss

Well, I agree with the top 5, but there's a mistake here. According to the newest matchup chart, the Links are no longer bad matchups for Samus. Link goes even and Young Link (YL) loses 6:4. Link might have more versatile projectiles, but Samus's are stronger and she has more applicable killing/comboing aerials. YL has trouble killing the 3rd heaviest char in the game unless he's dair/uaring and he usually needs to combo into those (and hope he's on a good stage).

I personally think Puff is worse than Marth. Hell, even Ganon might be worse than Marth.

I dunno about the Links. I know they're comparatively good against Samus, but they're still pretty bad characters...

I'd probably put Falco above those.

To be honest, I LIKE the Puff vs Samus matchup. Sure, it's bad for Samus, but at least I get to jump without being super-punished. Same goes for Ganon. Against Marth, the requirement is to not let your feet leave the ground, thus restricting your gameplay. And yes, Falco is a worse matchup for Samus than the Links now. All that laser camping...

ganon is a joke of a character

I wouldn't be so hasty to throw ganon aside as a joke. He has no trouble killing off the top (useful against Samus) or off the sides, and we have as much trouble killing him as he does killing us. After all, he is the FOURTH heaviest char in the game (after Samus ). Also, let's not forget that every single one of his moves, barring throws, can kill and his throws ALWAYS combo. So in a sense, his throw=death formula is almost as bad as Sheik (if only grabbing was easier for him). I find it funny that, just like Falco, Ganon has a meteor smash (dair) and a true spike (downB).

there was a time when i felt about marth the way i feel about cfalc right now
i hope that i learn to love the cfalc matchup like i love the marth one

let's discuss how to hurt c.falc shall we?

From all the matches I've watched and my own experiences with this matchup, I think Samus needs to stick close and try to apply pressure, limiting his options. Camping with missiles generally doesn't work. Ironically, Falcon is so much better at providing pressure than Samus and he combos so many things into knees, ESPECIALLY on Samus...it's frustrating! Pretty much, you have to be smarter and safer to outplay the Falcon. If you can trap him in shield with a missile (if you ever get any space), it can lead into a free grab. If he's trapped in shield otherwise (not being pressured by a missile), there isn't really anything Samus can do outside of poking it w/ jab and WDing back or spot dodging. His oos aerials come out too fast and too hard.

Curious Marth main question:

Where do you Samuses generally strike and ban vs. Peach? Where do you expect the Peach to strike, and what stage does game 1 usually play on?

First off, I would like to refer you to pages 74 thru 76 of "Intro To Samus + Character Match-Up's" (http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=185258) where this topic is brought up and discussed. Now to answer the Q for myself, I would strike/ban FD or FoD, and I guess I'd expect the Peach to strike/ban either Dreamland, KJ64, or Poke Stadium. Game 1 usually ends up on Yoshi's or Battlefield.

 

[Pi]

@bubba i wasn't goin off the latest matchup chart, just personal oppinion/experience/theory craft there
falco is falco is falco
most of them have such different playstyles it's really hard to get a bead on what he actually can do, when it seems like he can do almost anything,
but links, both young and adult, i feel just have the edge on samus

you can't edgeguard them reliably
they out camp u
they out space u, kind of like marth
you can't hit their shields with tilts
and Y.link can combo projectiles into dair at decent %'s for the kills

you also can't challenge their upair so they can juggle you, though not as effectively as marth

i'm not saying its' an awful matchup that should be fretted over, but at the very least i think it requires more know-how on the samus part to fight the links than it does on the links part
since a lot of what we're use to being able to do gets negated

also inb4;40ppp

 

[Violence]

I dunno if Bubba's trolling or just ignorant.

The matchup chart is a very tentative and highly debated thing. You can't really refer to it as end all be all information.

Same goes for the Samus guide, a lot of the info there is outdated and unsuited to the modern metagame.

In addition, Samuses have such diverse styles, it's hard to come up with a sweeping statement regarding all of us. It makes it hard to discuss matchups.

My top 5 worst matchups is probably:

1. Sheik
2. Puff
3. Ganon/Falcon
4. Marth
5. Falco

Though Link is pretty hard too. I'm pretty sure you can edgeguard him, I just haven't figured out how yet.

 

[TheCrimsonBlur]

Strike FoD? Really? I'd think that Samus would love to go there...I expected FD & Dreamland off for Samus and FoD and Yoshis off for Peach. Though I suppose if the Samus really hates Battlefield's ledge, they could grind it out on Dreamland...

Hrm. Violence what do you think? Or whoever else posts on Samus boards haha

 

[Pi]

FoD is just whack for peach because it gives her more opportunities/situations to abuse her dsmash platform bull****

like on all the other stages, u have to make the decision to jump into that ****

but on FoD situations come up where you don't even jump into it, ur just already in the middle of the washing machine and taking ridic. %


though it's honestly not a strong reason to ban the stage, our recovery on that stage i feel has been somewhat unexplored
and it wouldn't be very hard to get used to thsoe types of dsmash situations and avoid them

so as a whole the stage, wich proper stage & matchup knowledge, might not be as bad as i make it out to be

but it's just easier to go w/ what i know for now on other stages



bubba has expressed some pretty confident opinions which i haven't completley agree'd with but he's also siad plenty of stuff which makes me think he has at least a decent grasp on the game and how it functions

i would say though that he might wanna be slightly less blunt w/ some of the things he says, cause just the way he says thhem comes accross slightly arrogant/know-it-all-y

 

[Violence]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AIm3tYL0sY

This basically sums up what I think of this matchup.



Also, Bubba, can you please change your font color? Seriously, it's insanely hard to read.