Ideal Changes for Samus to become viable

[KatoRyusaki]

Hello Smashers

I've always been a fan of Samus, but Sakurai hasn't really put much effort into developing the details in the character's move set to make her viable for competitive play.

I've had with some ideas that I'd like to share and hopefully it gets around to influencing changes for her in upcoming patches.

These are just some of my opinions on possible changes for her, so feel free to leave your comments.


Buffs

- Remove the lag between Jab 1 & 2
- Remove all sour spots of Forward Tilt so that the knock back is consistent throughout her entire hitbox
- Change Forward Tilt damage from 5/6/7/8/9% to 7% through her entire hitbox on every angle of input
- Increase the damage on Down Smash from 10/12% (Front/Back) to 14/16% (Front/Back)
- Increase the knock back of Down Smash so it actually becomes a viable kill option at high %
- Enable Up Air's lingering hitbox to auto-link in a similar manner to Sheik’s Up Air
- Enable B Reverse technique for Neutral B and make it chargable while being airborne
- Add hit stun rather than knock back to Down B that scales with damage % so that it becomes a set-up option
- Remove landing lag of Neutral Air so that it becomes a proper spacing tool as well as an aerial approach option
- Increase the speed of her ground rolling so it actually becomes a reliable option of mobility

Nerfs

- Reduce the damage on 2nd Jab from 8% to 6%
- Reduce the damage on Down Tilt from 12% to 10%
- Reduce the damage on Up Tilt from 13% to 11% (Sweet Spot), 12% to 10% (Sour spot)
- Reduce the damage on Up Air from 3% (hit 1), 1% (hits 2-5), 4% (hit 6), 11% total
to 2% (hit 1), 1% (hits 2-5), 3% (hit 6), 9% total

 

[Xermo]

Posting hypothetical changes on the internet has no effect on the development of the game.

 

[LancerStaff]

Not going to work since the game is balanced for FFAs. She's always going to suck in 1v1s.

 

[A_Kae]

Not going to work since the game is balanced for FFAs. She's always going to suck in 1v1s.

Is she even good in FFAs?

I don't play either Samus or FFA, so I just don't know here.

 

[LancerStaff]

Is she even good in FFAs?

I don't play either Samus or FFA, so I just don't know here.

Everybody's good in FFAs. It's almost like that's what the game was made for.

 

[Hark17ball]

I'd honestly be happy if they fixed

Graedits ally laggy and only one throw is viable, with such danger she should have grab be better or make her throws stronger.

Smashes- Up still has people fall from it, Front has a tiny hit box, Down is slow and weak.

Jab- As mentioned
Missiles- Aren't a huge threat/ so much lag
Run speed- slight buff here would help us link attacks & have some ability to get our zoning game back on.

Just 2 fixes of this list I feel she would climb up a good bit. That's just me tho I like the way she plays for the most part.



*edit* I don't want her to be OP. Low Mid-Mid tier I'd be cool with it. Wow phone was buggy sorry for the 2 edits.

 

[Xygonn]

Cs is super good in ffa

 

[Varia31]

Well speaking out of personal opinion, I miss her old Nair. I liked the new one for the most part, but the old one felt more useful. I think that change alone could help, but I know it won't happen.

Making her grab have slightly less start-up frames and less end lag would help, as would less end lag on her missiles. Lastly, I agree with the notion of getting rid of the intentional design choice of making Samus' jab combo not link. It would be great to actually hit with it reliably most of the time.

These changes alone, I feel, would help quite a bit.

 

[Afro Smash]

Samus only needs one thing to rocket her up the tier list. Take off her suit :^]

 

[RoachCake]

- Remove the lag between Jab 1 & 2

Never going to happen. It's an intended flaw, and is part of what makes Samus, Samus.

Learning how to get past Samus' intended flaws I think is what separates the good Samus mains from the bad ones.
I think her Jab should stay this way. (Or could get rid of Jab 2 and make Jab 1 like Villager's Jab...lol)

- Remove all sour spots of Forward Tilt so that the knock back is consistent throughout her entire hitbox
- Change Forward Tilt damage from 5/6/7/8/9% to 7% through her entire hitbox on every angle of input

But what's the consistent knock back? Is it the old tech chase setup one?
This change I really don't understand your reasoning otherwise.

A better change I think, would be to remove the knee hitbox (5% hit) and have the shin hitbox instead take over that area. (F-tilt would now be back to 3 hitboxes)
And increase the KBG/BKB on the tipper hitbox to make it kill 10-20% earlier. (Sakurai already changed so it could kill, may as well make it better at that job)

- Increase the damage on Down Smash from 10/12% (Front/Back) to 14/16% (Front/Back)
- Increase the knock back of Down Smash so it actually becomes a viable kill option at high %

Like Samus' Jab combo, D-smash won't be changed. (Although I'd love to be wrong)

- Enable Up Air's lingering hitbox to auto-link in a similar manner to Sheik’s Up Air

This change should have been listed in your nerfs section.

- Enable B Reverse technique for Neutral B and make it chargable while being airborne

Turnaround B is already possible.
Second part will never be implemented.

- Add hit stun rather than knock back to Down B that scales with damage % so that it becomes a set-up option

Only change Bombs need is exploding on-contact sooner.
Probably won't happen, but it's more likely than her Jab Combo being changed.

- Remove landing lag of Neutral Air so that it becomes a proper spacing tool as well as an aerial approach option

Just removing all landing lag would not make N-air a good spacing and approach tool, you'd also need a startup reduction. Samus would also need an airspeed change to make even more use of this, which will never happen, things like run/walk speed, character weight, airspeed, fall/fast fall speed, ect are very unlikely to be changed since they're what helps make each character unique.

I'd change it to have reduced startup and end lag by a few frames, and increasing KBG making it kill about 10% earlier, maybe more.

- Increase the speed of her ground rolling so it actually becomes a reliable option of mobility

Also never going to happen. Intended flaw.
Why are you using rolls to get around anyway?

Additional buff
- Increase the damage as well as KBG on Down Tilt from 12% to 14%

Nerfs

- Reduce the damage on 2nd Jab from 8% to 6%
- Reduce the damage on Up Tilt from 13% to 11% (Sweet Spot), 12% to 10% (Sour spot)
- Reduce the damage on Up Air from 3% (hit 1), 1% (hits 2-5), 4% (hit 6), 11% total
to 2% (hit 1), 1% (hits 2-5), 3% (hit 6), 9% total

FTFY

Posting hypothetical changes on the internet has no effect on the development of the game.

Well, ya never know.
I mean, didn't Sakurai himself say in one of his articles that him and his team took into account opinions from the internet when making changes?

Edit: Found it http://www.gamnesia.com/news/sakura...he-balancing-in-super-smash-bros#.VaG8nPlViko

 

[Vyrnx]

Even if Samus' jab combo not linking is intended, it's just silly. I don't think it's too much to ask for, and it wouldn't make Samus OP'ed. Jabs are not something that can be avoided or incorporated out of gameplay because you need them when your opponent is up close. They're situational; gameplay doesn't revolve around the use of jab (except maybe a few characters like Falco and Falcon). Samus has many other defining features as a character and I don't think a horrible jab should be one of them.

Nair should be sped up. I think grab could be sped up a little bit... Maybe 5 frames shorter on the end lag.

CS shouldn't become b-reversible. Right now it isn't b-reversible--there's a technique for sort of b-reversing it on the ground but not in the air and I think its important it stays that way.

Usmash should link better, dsmash should have a knock back buff... All fairly minor changes but I feel that's all Samus needs to be a nice mid tier character.

If we were talking big buffs, maybe give one of her throws significantly higher knock back to make it a kill throw around 150%. We saw it happen to Charizard so Sakurai and co aren't afraid to do this. Samus lacks kill power in many aspects and it would improve that as well as her grab game. Probably too much to ask for though.

 

[LIQUID12A]

How about a throw that doesn't lag for a thousand years?

That'd be nice.

But it ain't happening.

*cries*

 

[Grambles]

CS shouldn't become b-reversible. Right now it isn't b-reversible--there's a technique for sort of b-reversing it on the ground but not in the air and I think its important it stays that way.

You've got that backwards. I've also noticed on occasion when doing a reverse CS my momentum swings a bit like a regular b reverse too.

But really, all the top tier characters have good grabs. Grabs that kill, or have good set ups. The best kill throw option Samus has right now is down throwing some one, and frame trapping a CS. It is in no way reliable, but a decent mix up.

I'd like to see her up-throw turned into a kill throw (~150% sounds reasonable), considering it's mostly useless as is. Her grab is so laggy and punishable that it wouldn't break her, but it'd give her a good shot at mid, or mid-low.

If we wanna get theoretical and crazy, get rid of her missles and give her shinespark, and the way it works in Smash Run. That honestly should have at least been a custom for her.

 

[SpottedCerberus]

Reverse some of the nerfs from brawl. (There were actually a lot, which is weird seeing as she was already a bottom-tier character. Yet her high tier counterpart was buffed. And then she got nerfed again in 1.0.6, albeit not majorly, but still. It's just bizarre.)

I mean, her down-smash is just ridiculously bad as it is. Even fully charged, it barely does more damage than her d-tilt. Uncharged, it's slower with less range and less damage and negligible KO power.

Zair is still great, but I really notice the 8 frames of landing lag.

Her missiles desperately need some kind of buff. I mean, they're just terrible.

We're not going to get her old nair back, but giving the new one a buff so I stop hating it would be pretty great.

Her grab game needs some kind of buff. Either reduce the risk or increase the reward. Just give us something.

Her f-smash is pretty fast to come out, but I wish it was a bit less laggy.

There's some other stuff, but most of it is just clearly intentional design choices. The developers chose to give Samus the only chargeable move that couldn't charge in mid-air, and they chose to give her a damn-near useless jab.

 

[Staticky]

Posting hypothetical changes on the internet has no effect on the development of the game.

You're fun.

 

[Xermo]

You're fun.

I'm great at parties , too.

 

[DungeonMaster]

I'm going to climb on my soapbox once again in the vain hope that someone from nintendo is listening.
#1 - Missiles. Homing missiles need to be slower for setups. Or faster to actually catch targets. One or the other. Both moves need less cooldown, they need to be like they were before game was released, the E3 build. Homing missile is candidate for worst move in the game right now.
#2 - Grab. Startup needs to be faster so that we can shield grab a wider range of attacks. Endlag is still completely absurd. Why does Samus' grab, which has few situational kill setups, and very technical difficult combos out of it have to have such an insanely large punish window and slow startup?! They did this for Link, why not Samus?
#3 Hit box + hurt box sizes. The priority is too low. Larger hitboxes on all moves, smaller hurtoboxes, that at the very least match the on-screen animations. D-air specifically. People should fear Samus d-air, it's an iconic move. Too many things beat it now.
#4 Less endlag. This is a combo based character. The endlags are chosen such that you need exceptionally good timing to execute them. Less frames on everything, particularly landing lag from d-air, up-tilt cooldown, dash-attack, d-throw would make a significant difference. They did this for Ike, who was never a combo character, why not Samus?
#5 Make teching more difficult. It's obvious since last patch that having a combo starter that requires a tech is a designed, intentional flaw in the character. They removed teching from falco d-air and Ryu has no moves that can be teched. We are stuck with several great but un-reliable combos that many twitch "shield" reactions get people out of. It's flat out unfair. Make teching a grounded meteor smash a handful of frames at most.
#6 Make CS come out faster in the air - as the tooltips suggest. D-air startup likewise. Straighten out the house, give us the E3 build before it went through arbitrary nerfing.

 

[Balgorxz]

usmash having sticky properties like link's new usmash would be enough to please me, nair having less landing lagg or startup as a neutral zoning tool.

 

[JAZZ_]

Things I'd like to see.
Jab reworked to link better
The infamous Up smash issue resolved
Side smash with just a smidge more range and less cooldown lag
and homing missile slowed down or sped up (the lukewarmness of these things is terrible)

completely outlandish change idea thatll never happen but would be cool.
give Samus her crawl like they gave her in Project M. why cant we crawl Via morph ball? that was the whole reason they added the morph ball in metroid. animating someone crawling on the NES was too difficult so the morph ball was used for crawling segments.

 

[Xygonn]

@ JAZZ_ Everyone wonders what PaulyU wonders: "y cant metroid crawl?"

 

[JAZZ_]

@ Xygonn yeah, I see those words constantly in the Support Samus miiverse community. like every other post.

 

[Boney]

I'm going to climb on my soapbox once again in the vain hope that someone from nintendo is listening.
#1 - Missiles. Homing missiles need to be slower for setups. Or faster to actually catch targets. One or the other. Both moves need less cooldown, they need to be like they were before game was released, the E3 build. Homing missile is candidate for worst move in the game right now.
#2 - Grab. Startup needs to be faster so that we can shield grab a wider range of attacks. Endlag is still completely absurd. Why does Samus' grab, which has few situational kill setups, and very technical difficult combos out of it have to have such an insanely large punish window and slow startup?! They did this for Link, why not Samus?
#3 Hit box + hurt box sizes. The priority is too low. Larger hitboxes on all moves, smaller hurtoboxes, that at the very least match the on-screen animations. D-air specifically. People should fear Samus d-air, it's an iconic move. Too many things beat it now.
#4 Less endlag. This is a combo based character. The endlags are chosen such that you need exceptionally good timing to execute them. Less frames on everything, particularly landing lag from d-air, up-tilt cooldown, dash-attack, d-throw would make a significant difference. They did this for Ike, who was never a combo character, why not Samus?
#5 Make teching more difficult. It's obvious since last patch that having a combo starter that requires a tech is a designed, intentional flaw in the character. They removed teching from falco d-air and Ryu has no moves that can be teched. We are stuck with several great but un-reliable combos that many twitch "shield" reactions get people out of. It's flat out unfair. Make teching a grounded meteor smash a handful of frames at most.
#6 Make CS come out faster in the air - as the tooltips suggest. D-air startup likewise. Straighten out the house, give us the E3 build before it went through arbitrary nerfing.

Is there any info on the e3 build? I wanna cry myself to sleep

 

[Hapajin]

I'm going to climb on my soapbox once again in the vain hope that someone from nintendo is listening.
#1 - Missiles. Homing missiles need to be slower for setups. Or faster to actually catch targets. One or the other. Both moves need less cooldown, they need to be like they were before game was released, the E3 build. Homing missile is candidate for worst move in the game right now.
#2 - Grab. Startup needs to be faster so that we can shield grab a wider range of attacks. Endlag is still completely absurd. Why does Samus' grab, which has few situational kill setups, and very technical difficult combos out of it have to have such an insanely large punish window and slow startup?! They did this for Link, why not Samus?
#3 Hit box + hurt box sizes. The priority is too low. Larger hitboxes on all moves, smaller hurtoboxes, that at the very least match the on-screen animations. D-air specifically. People should fear Samus d-air, it's an iconic move. Too many things beat it now.
#4 Less endlag. This is a combo based character. The endlags are chosen such that you need exceptionally good timing to execute them. Less frames on everything, particularly landing lag from d-air, up-tilt cooldown, dash-attack, d-throw would make a significant difference. They did this for Ike, who was never a combo character, why not Samus?
#5 Make teching more difficult. It's obvious since last patch that having a combo starter that requires a tech is a designed, intentional flaw in the character. They removed teching from falco d-air and Ryu has no moves that can be teched. We are stuck with several great but un-reliable combos that many twitch "shield" reactions get people out of. It's flat out unfair. Make teching a grounded meteor smash a handful of frames at most.
#6 Make CS come out faster in the air - as the tooltips suggest. D-air startup likewise. Straighten out the house, give us the E3 build before it went through arbitrary nerfing.

I really like these suggestions because I feel like they are very practical and logical buffs to ask for. Not like we need or are asking for a whole character revamp, but these could boost Samus quite a bit in the tiers.

 

[DungeonMaster]

Is there any info on the e3 build? I wanna cry myself to sleep

Yeah, I'm making a video. Probably won't be ready for another several weeks. There is definite proof that Samus was nerfed pre-release, we never got to test a Samus with 40 frames/missile, 14 damage on the d-tilt and 9 damage on the n-air.

 

[LancerStaff]

Yeah, I'm making a video. Probably won't be ready for another several weeks. There is definite proof that Samus was nerfed pre-release, we never got to test a Samus with 40 frames/missile, 14 damage on the d-tilt and 9 damage on the n-air.

Everybody was nerfed in some way... Pit I know lost super armor on his Dspecial somewhere along the line. You can see it in action in the SSB Direct, and the move's code calls for it but never specifies a frame.

 

[The_Woebegone_Jackal]

Samus needs her old nair and zair more than anything. She has no forward threat to grounded opponents from the air currently as fair has high landing lag and the current nair's hitbox is ridiculously tiny and too precise for the reward if you land it. It also doesn't make any sense that Samus' zair does less than ZSS', who does 6 at the tip which is an entire tilt worth of damage while we have less tools to keep people out along with having a terrible zair as far as hitstun and damage is concerned to begin with. Bring back Brawl Zair as far as sour and sweet spots are concerned, as well as up the damage all around.

Her missiles obviously need to be fixed, but I'll add to what others have said rather than repeat the lag being reduced. Homing Missiles straight up don't home enough. They tracked better in both Melee and Brawl, the nerf to that ability doesn't make any sense considering all the other nerfs to missiles. They can't even be used from the air anymore as they just don't angle enough to hit grounded opponents. Super Missiles I will also say need to have a huge buff to speed as well as their ability to pressure shields. If Homing Missiles are for setups and zoning, Super Missiles should be for threat yes? Currently they are to slow to be used as a direct means of damage as well as being to easy to power shield, so they don't really pose any real danger. Speed would help Samus actually hit people with them, extra knock back (adding kill potential possibly around 180% or so even) would give it the threat it needs, and lastly either give it a little more shield damage for pressure or make the move have two hitboxes so you can't just powershield it and hit Samus during the currently ridiculously high end lag.

Also, and I think this important, have Samus' up-smash scoop ALL non-crouching characters off the ground. As far as i can tell, every multihit up-smash in the game does this besides Samus', even Roy's which makes absolutely no sense as far as the animation is concerned (its scoops Kirby from the sides even when hes not physically touching Roy). This trait of having a multihit up-smash that is useless for grounded kills is uniquely Samus', and even reading airdodges to the ground with it can wiff simply because of how easy it is to pass through the hitbox. Obviously I'd also agree the move needs to connect with itself better, but the scoops need to be first and foremost in my opinion.

Lastly I'll echo that Samus' Grab needs to be buffed, either having less startup and endlag, or the reward for landing one needs to be hugely buffed as in better combo ability as well as making one (up-throw most likely) a kill throw. Honestly any more changes should be a mixture of both. The risk/reward is completely off balance here, why is it we have as much of a window to have a wiffed grab punished as Little Mac does on a KO punch? ZSS and Lucas both are better examples of balanced tether grabs, as yes both are punishable but ZSS gets huge rewards in combo potential and raw damage as well as possible KO's from landing one, while Lucas can straigh up kill with his along with his having reliable combos as well.

 

[JAZZ_]

Everybody was nerfed in some way... Pit I know lost super armor on his Dspecial somewhere along the line. You can see it in action in the SSB Direct, and the move's code calls for it but never specifies a frame.

Pit doesnt need this level of reworking though. Someone in the dev team clearly wants Samus to be the worst.

 

[LancerStaff]

Pit doesnt need this level of reworking though. Someone in the dev team clearly wants Samus to be the worst.

He did coming from Brawl, but that's beside the point.

Samus is as bad as she is in 1v1s because the game is balanced for FFAs. Sakurai claiming she was the best character probably came from a build where they tried to make her work in 1v1s, but then she was too good in FFAs because she could then properly defend herself.

 

[Afro Smash]

Having just had a full day of playing smash vs a great player, these are all the changes I want

Colour Code:
Possible
Unlikely
Never gonna happen

Jab

• Safe on hit at 0% (currently unsafe til 30%)
• Combos in to Jab 2 from 30% (currently combos at 60%)
• Remove the spaced hitbox, just give it one hitbox (spaced hitbox fails to combo in to jab 2 until like 90%)

F-Tilt

• Make the move have 2 hitboxes again, 4 are completely unnessecary and has only made it so we cant tech chase as well and the 5% hitbox is unsafe on hit. Possibly reduce the endlag a bit.

Up Tilt

• Reduce the endlag, for the amount of start up this move has it shouldnt be punishable on block.

F Smash

• Make the hitbox the whole of Samus' arm, whiffing when somone is right next to you is ridiculous.
• Make the Down Angled variation as powerful as the up angled, small characters already give us trouble, we dont need our down angled f smash to be the weakest variation
• Increase shield pushback on sweetspot to make it less punishable and reward spacing

Up Smash

• As others have said, make it scoop from Samus' knees so she can hit everybody, every other character with multihits or the powerful hitbox above them (ROB) has a low hitbox to drag them in
• Make it ****ing link when people are above you on platforms, people ALWAYS fall out if they're on a platform, it basically ensures we have no kill punish for people above us
• Make it link every time on the ground, make it so that if the first hit is successful the remaining hitboxes increase in size or something (idk if this is possible) or just make it vacuum properly.

Down Smash

• Make it kill
• Or
• Make it deal more damage
• Or
• Reduce start up and end lag

Nair

• Make the back hit linger so we can land

Missiles

• Reduce the end lag but keep it so you can only have 1 Super Missile out and 2 Homing Missiles out at a time
• Make Super Missiles kill around 150%

Bombs

• Explode on contact immediately after they're laid
• Make bomb jumping give a little extra height as opposed to just being used for stalling

Charge Shot

• Remove the punishable window at full charge, I don't know why this exists in the first place. (doesnt exist for mewtwo lucario and WFT)

Grab/Throws

• Reduce Start Up and end lag similarly to what happened to Link
• And/Or
• Give us combos until kill percents
• or
• Give us a kill throw

As Woebegone touched on, the risk reward with our grab is completely out of whack, its insanely laggy on start up and cooldown and what do we get out of it? Combos that can be DI'd out of and no kill throw. All other tethers have a kill throw or kill combo except ours and ours is the worst lag wise (maybe tied with ZSS).

I'm also ****ing tired of getting punished for landing attacks, jab and sour f tilt being punished on hit is insane, people falling out of up smash constantly, dair and up tilt meteors being teched, too often do we get punished for landing attacks when we should be rewarded due to horrible design decisions, ones that are so flawed that I can't help but get my hopes up every time a patch is released since they're so obvious they need fixing, but Sakurai loves to let me down

 

[DungeonMaster]

Samus is as bad as she is in 1v1s because the game is balanced for FFAs. Sakurai claiming she was the best character probably came from a build where they tried to make her work in 1v1s, but then she was too good in FFAs because she could then properly defend herself.

I think we've had this argument before @ LancerStaff but I do not think Samus has ANY particular advantage in FFA, for fun, teams or any other mode over ANY other character. A really good sheik is just as un-punishable and when she picks up a beam sword kill power problem = solved. All of the nerfs and buffs have been highly targeted at 1v1 play. No one nerfed Shiek's b-air kill power because it was destroying too many people on for-fun.
I play a fair amount of FFA, and for-fun teams (particularly when I'm tired). I still notice all the problems associated with the character and I still see people capitalizing on the issues. I swear every little kid on the planet knows that if you do a low-lag aerial and spot-dodge Samus' shield grab will whiff. The word "teams" and "FFA" do not magically increase Samus' priority in trading hits or getting hit.

 

[KenMeister]

Something I feel should be mentioned that I haven't really seen is that the hitbox for dash attack needs to match the move's animation, in other words, the hitbox needs to appear earlier. Too many times have I whiffed a dash attack when someone is right in front of me, yet Falcon doesn't have the same issue. WTF

 

[LancerStaff]

I think we've had this argument before @ LancerStaff but I do not think Samus has ANY particular advantage in FFA, for fun, teams or any other mode over ANY other character. A really good sheik is just as un-punishable and when she picks up a beam sword kill power problem = solved. All of the nerfs and buffs have been highly targeted at 1v1 play. No one nerfed Shiek's b-air kill power because it was destroying too many people on for-fun.
I play a fair amount of FFA, and for-fun teams (particularly when I'm tired). I still notice all the problems associated with the character and I still see people capitalizing on the issues. I swear every little kid on the planet knows that if you do a low-lag aerial and spot-dodge Samus' shield grab will whiff. The word "teams" and "FFA" do not magically increase Samus' priority in trading hits or getting hit.

You're literally the only Samus I've met that doubts her FFA viability... I even have a friend who has an 80% winrate on Glory FFAs using only her.

FFAs rarely come down to two players in a mini 1v1, you have four players with their own strategies fighting it out. If somebody targets Samus, somebody else is going to pelt the attacker with projectiles. Not Samus because she struggles for KOs, but her attacker which most likely does not so to make more chances to swoop in with a KO move. It's already detrimental to put any serious focus on Samus... If it were any more, then she'd be above and beyond the best character. Which lines up with what Sakurai said.

 

[DungeonMaster]

I typically hover at 80% win rate in 1v1 for-glory and I can only guess at my FFA count since I prefer to play for-fun in that format (omega is just dull) but it's likely similar. That does not mean I'm "good" or the character is "good" at 1v1.
It's a question of equal skill vs. equal skill.

Samus does not struggle for KOs, I don't know where you're getting this idea from. Looking at the list of requested changes I don't think any of the Samus mains have listed KO power as a prime problem.
The KO power of d-smash, yes, that's a quality of life problem, but the overall KO power is fine. That was really a brawl Samus problem, and back then it was really, really bad.

I think there was a build of Samus where she was in fact "good". And not in some contorted definition, but actually just generally a "good" character. At least there is some solid evidence that some of the problems we've discussed were not in the E3 build, very specifically the missiles but I would not disregard a 14 damage d-tilt and a 9 damage nair. Why the nair got nerfed even more boggles the mind....

 

[KenMeister]

I honestly don't think online should be used to judge the potential of people/characters....Period. There's a lot of precise inputs I have to do with, say, Mario for example that I can only do well with offline for example, namely varying my use of RAR bair more and following up more on juggles and grab followups. Samus probably falls under the same category as well, and using her online hurts her gameplay a bit, at least for me anyway.

 

[Boney]

Actually I do have some issues with her killing power. For starters, shields are so incredibly safe against samus because of how slow and unthreatening it is to land at high %.
Fsmash is great, but it has tons of ending lag and relies on the sweetspot unlike other smashes. She doesn't have any other reliable grounded ko move with the exception of the charge shot. Which is fantastic but still requires you to have it ready in advance, and against say Shiek, it's pretty hard to have handy. Screw attack isn't reliable as well, and can easily be di'ed and live way past 150%.
Back air is godly though and she also has some great offstage game. Up air when unstaled is surprisingly good as well, but that's not a luxury we can afford.

I'd love to see a slight buff to up throw, make it kill at 160 and dtilt needs less end lag (with less damage) or also make it ko similar to falco's.

Samus is supposed to have relatively weak close quarters, but her long range game (not her combos) make up for it. Missiles can't be too good because they'd make Charge Shot a lot better by association but they still could use some buff, homing's end lag and lack of at momentum in the air is insulting.

so yeah, what I'd do is give her her old ftilt back (was a better spacer and better kill setups). Buff missiles, rework dtilt to be a better kill move or give it a little less end lag and buff her grapple beam to make it more like Link's and buff up throw (for a very late kill confirm at least). She'd be mid tier with that but it's better than nothing.

 

[Anfantast]

Bring back old Nair

 

[aceorduece]

These are changes I think would benefit Samus:

- slightly increase dash speed
- increase travel speed of her Missile/Super Missile
- increase damage
- reduce frame data of up tilt for more reliable hits
- reduce end lag of down air and down tilt
- remove sourspots of forward smash as they are too easy to hit with, lessening Samus's potential
- reduce frame data of Grapple Beam
- slightly reduce the frame data of down air to connect more reliably
- slightly increase the travel speed of Charge Shot (all stages)
- reduce knockback of each hit of Screwattack except the final hit for more consistency
- slightly reduce end lag of Samus's jump animation
- slightly speed up Samus's roll dodge animation
- slightly increase the knockback and damage of the last hit of up air by 2%

 

[MOM Samus]

These aren't shots or anything, but I'm personally going to die of laughter when Sylux is revealed to be a top class a**.

 

[MOM Samus]

These are changes I think would benefit Samus:

- slightly increase dash speed
- increase travel speed of her Missile/Super Missile
- increase damage
- reduce frame data of up tilt for more reliable hits
- reduce end lag of down air and down tilt
- remove sourspots of forward smash as they are too easy to hit with, lessening Samus's potential
- reduce frame data of Grapple Beam
- slightly reduce the frame data of down air to connect more reliably
- slightly increase the travel speed of Charge Shot (all stages)
- reduce knockback of each hit of Screwattack except the final hit for more consistency
- slightly reduce end lag of Samus's jump animation
- slightly speed up Samus's roll dodge animation
- slightly increase the knockback and damage of the last hit of up air by 2%

Speeding up missiles and charge shots is definitely a plus, but since both of them have so much lag, if they're reflected...not good.

And both of them are already at the perfect speed to intercept the 5 types of rolls.

 

[aceorduece]

These aren't shots or anything, but I'm personally going to die of laughter when Sylux is revealed to be a top class a**.

That's actually who I hope will appear as a new Metroid rep. Ridley was practically just an arch-nemesis for her at the time because of her past, but has been changed permanently as now he is Meta Ridley, which is not at all a transformation power up, but just Ridley undergoing life support, yet Sylux seems to know much more about Samus and the Confederacy and going by the timeline has more against Samus than Ridley does.

Still, I feel the Grapple Beam animation should lose a few frames, and sour spots need to be removed from her smash attacks.