New(ish) ZSS player with some general questions

[burntfish44]

A bit about me (no real need to read this):
With newfound inspiration from watching apex 2013 vods and 2014 live, I've come back to brawl with intentions of rising above the casual I've always been and becoming competitive-status material. I was playing mostly brawl off and on for the last few months, until just recently, in the last month or so, where I've realized how much better and more competitive melee is - and have since started playing project M. I hope to become competitive level in hopes of winning local tourneys, and just for the fun of it.
Ive been a marth main since I got back into smash these last few months, with inspiration from Mr R, and Ken recently.
Aside from the other fire emblem characters and zelda, I haven't really had a connection or enough of an interest to pursue improvement with any other characters.
I was dabbling with ZSS after watching Salem wreck APEX 2013, but felt like her high mobility and speed was hard to control - but now that I've gotten better and been trying her again in PM, I'm liking her. Despite having a bit of trouble controlling her still, a lot of her moves feel very natural to me and i love how her attacks string together.


Actual relevant part:
To expand on the last bit, a lot of ZSS's moves feel natural to me - most of these are her ground game. Her jab combo, d-tilt, u-tilt, and dash attack i can work with really well. I also love the increased knockback of PM of her f-smash.
But her arials seem really strong to if used right - but i'm not quite as good with them

1. do i want to stick to the ground, or be jumping around?
My immediate reaction is to stay on the ground - but to what extent?
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ZSS in brawl had very high defencive potential - medium-long range neutral B, medium range side B, good recovery, but there have been some big changes in project m, namely the entire pace and feel of the game.

2. with the new pace/feel of project M as a whole, what is the general playstyle i want to be using with ZSS? balls-to-the-walls on top of you like Shiek utilizing the movement and attack speed she has? or still a Salem-style defencive play utilizing her medium to long range moves?
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3. I'm having trouble with recovery, as it doesn't seem nearly as good as it did in brawl - any general tips? When to use side b or up b or down b directed towards the stage?
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4. Who's a good player that i can look up to learn from?
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5. I'm not too worried about matchup specifics right now - but what are the main people to watch out for?
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6. I'm of course looking up forum posts and guides and such, but any final general tips? Or main things i should keep in mind while playing ZSS?

 

[Daftatt]

1. It depends on who you are fighting, bigger characters can get whooped by ZSS's ground game, but usually you should be SHFFLing with nair and up-air, and occasionally fair. If you are going to be on the ground you can space heavily with over-b and lasers. Another good rule no live by is that if you opponent is in the air you need to be in the air, or you need to be pulling them down with up-b (plasma wire) to up-tilt them (a sort of pillar combo). Your kill moves should be d-throw (or up-throw if you want to mix it up) to bair, or d-smash to f-smash (or bair).

2. Like I said, you will want to have a heavy spacing game with over-b and lasers, always keeping your opponent off of you, always dictating how far away they are from you, so you can either go in with a grab (be careful with grabs though, they are high risk high reward due to end lag) or you can wait for them to be in the air and have an opening so you can get in with up-air/up-b/nair. If they are on the ground and you feel like you want to go in, then laser-dashattack is pretty good, or laser-grab (but again, be careful with this), you can also SHFFL fair them, the last hit is good, and if they are pressuring you on the ground your jab is very fast (frame one I think) and d-tilt has good range.

3. Her recovery is actually much better than it was in brawl. If you get knocked away really far always start with a flip-jump (down-b) back towards the stage, this will cancel a lot of momentum if you are flying back, usually save your jump (if you have it) for after down-b because you get better lateral recovery which is what zss needs. If ZSS is close to a stage with walls on the edge, like Yoshi's story, use down-b to jump into the wall and walljump out and upwards towards the ledge, then use up-b to tether, this sort of recovery can be used when very very low underneath the ledge and is usually safer than trying to get the ledge from higher up. As far as her two tethers go there range is as follows (this is an approximation from experience), I'm pretty sure there is a dead zone.

4. Oro is the default best ZSS player right now, I think he is also the main playtester for the PMBR team. Leffen had a very impressive ZSS at this year's apex, check his matches out if you would like.

5. Fox, Falco, Wolf will all wreck ZSS right now. A very good squirtle player can also destroy her (unless your grab game is up to snuff). Marth/Roy can also counter-space ZSS very effectively, but for marth you can D-smash edge guard him on his dolphin slash recovery and unless he sweetspots the ledge you should stun him. You can also grab people when the pop up from stun in the air

6. Learn to laser effectively and SHFFL well. Also learn to hit airborne opponents with her up-b and to wavebounce with it. Get your D-smash edge guarding down pat, unless the opponent sweetspots the ledge you can punish with a big stun, then when they pop out of stun you can f-smash to kill (unless they DI up and are at low to mid percentages), or better yet fair/bair to kill. If you are feeling like you really want to put salt in your opponent's veins you can do what is called a stunstool (which I outline how to do here), it's a really hard read but it can flat out gimp a ton of characters. Finally, you can get really good at grabs, pivot grabs, sliding pivot grabs (NEVER USE ZSS's STANDING GRAB, it's bad), d-throw can set up a lot of good combos and kills (and up-throw once you get really good at reads on your opponents.

 

[N.T.A.O ChangeOfHeart 死の剣]

Just Down Smash and you'll win everyone.

 

[Daftatt]

Just Down Smash and you'll win everyone.

Lol, yeah, I was talking out of my ass in my first post, just play her like it's brawl, everything will work out

 

[N.T.A.O ChangeOfHeart 死の剣]

Lol, yeah, I was talking out of my *** in my first post, just play her like it's brawl, everything will work out

Now you're talking. Happy to help.

Edit: No question, is this a PM thread?

 

[Daftatt]

Now you're talking. Happy to help.

Edit: No question, is this a PM thread?

this is a P:M thread, notice it's under ProjectM/CharacterDiscussion/ZeroSuitSamus
Also why my answer was longer than your answer, your answer would have actually been right in a brawl forum.

 

[N.T.A.O ChangeOfHeart 死の剣]

this is a P:M thread, notice it's under ProjectM/CharacterDiscussion/ZeroSuitSamus
Also why my answer was longer than your answer, your answer would have actually been right in a brawl forum.

I have a question Draft. What type of play-style do you think I use? And I prefer Brawl than PM, however; Melee beats them all because it's the best game there is. No offense?

 

[N.T.A.O ChangeOfHeart 死の剣]

Oh and Smash 64 is a tie bewteen Melee as well.

 

[burntfish44]

1. It depends on who you are fighting, bigger characters can get whooped by ZSS's ground game, but usually you should be SHFFLing with nair and up-air, and occasionally fair. If you are going to be on the ground you can space heavily with over-b and lasers. Another good rule no live by is that if you opponent is in the air you need to be in the air, or you need to be pulling them down with up-b (plasma wire) to up-tilt them (a sort of pillar combo). Your kill moves should be d-throw (or up-throw if you want to mix it up) to bair, or d-smash to f-smash (or bair).

2. Like I said, you will want to have a heavy spacing game with over-b and lasers, always keeping your opponent off of you, always dictating how far away they are from you, so you can either go in with a grab (be careful with grabs though, they are high risk high reward due to end lag) or you can wait for them to be in the air and have an opening so you can get in with up-air/up-b/nair. If they are on the ground and you feel like you want to go in, then laser-dashattack is pretty good, or laser-grab (but again, be careful with this), you can also SHFFL fair them, the last hit is good, and if they are pressuring you on the ground your jab is very fast (frame one I think) and d-tilt has good range.

3. Her recovery is actually much better than it was in brawl. If you get knocked away really far always start with a flip-jump (down-b) back towards the stage, this will cancel a lot of momentum if you are flying back, usually save your jump (if you have it) for after down-b because you get better lateral recovery which is what zss needs. If ZSS is close to a stage with walls on the edge, like Yoshi's story, use down-b to jump into the wall and walljump out and upwards towards the ledge, then use up-b to tether, this sort of recovery can be used when very very low underneath the ledge and is usually safer than trying to get the ledge from higher up. As far as her two tethers go there range is as follows (this is an approximation from experience), I'm pretty sure there is a dead zone.

4. Oro is the default best ZSS player right now, I think he is also the main playtester for the PMBR team. Leffen had a very impressive ZSS at this year's apex, check his matches out if you would like.

5. Fox, Falco, Wolf will all wreck ZSS right now. A very good squirtle player can also destroy her (unless your grab game is up to snuff). Marth/Roy can also counter-space ZSS very effectively, but for marth you can D-smash edge guard him on his dolphin slash recovery and unless he sweetspots the ledge you should stun him. You can also grab people when the pop up from stun in the air

6. Learn to laser effectively and SHFFL well. Also learn to hit airborne opponents with her up-b and to wavebounce with it. Get your D-smash edge guarding down pat, unless the opponent sweetspots the ledge you can punish with a big stun, then when they pop out of stun you can f-smash to kill (unless they DI up and are at low to mid percentages), or better yet fair/bair to kill. If you are feeling like you really want to put salt in your opponent's veins you can do what is called a stunstool (which I outline how to do here), it's a really hard read but it can flat out gimp a ton of characters. Finally, you can get really good at grabs, pivot grabs, sliding pivot grabs (NEVER USE ZSS's STANDING GRAB, it's bad), d-throw can set up a lot of good combos and kills (and up-throw once you get really good at reads on your opponents.

Thanks a bunch!!! I will certainly keep these in mind.
As a bit of an extension on my matchups question - who is zss very strong against/should always wreck? Just out of curiosity

Oh and the stunstooling thing is awesome xD I'm failing pretty hard at it though

 

[Daftatt]

ZSS should generally do well against Bowser, DK, Gannon, Link, Wario. Keep in mind though that the P:M metagame isn't quite mature, so many matchups could completely change as people figure more stuff out.

 

[burntfish44]

ZSS should generally do well against Bowser, DK, Gannon, Link, Wario. Keep in mind though that the P:M metagame isn't quite mature, so many matchups could completely change as people figure more stuff out.

actually i had a quick noob question about the stunstooling...
remembering reading project m changes (from brawl) i think i remember something about footsotoling being different - is there anything special i need to do? or just jump near their head?

 

[Oro?!]

You cannot footstool people while they are in a "paralyze" state. The range on footstool has not changed from Brawl, but you use up taunt to footstool.

 

[Daftatt]

actually i had a quick noob question about the stunstooling...
remembering reading project m changes (from brawl) i think i remember something about footsotoling being different - is there anything special i need to do? or just jump near their head?

like oro said in the footstooling thread, you can dair-pop footstool as well, which might work better than stunstool in lots of cases.

 

[burntfish44]

so after a couple of days of playing zss i have a new general question...
How do i go about grabbing? like unless it's a painfully obvious im-going-to-get-him hard read, im having a lot of trouble making grabs work in general..
maybe it's just a habit thing being a marth player, and i should just try to use them less on zss?

 

[Daftatt]

so after a couple of days of playing zss i have a new general question...
How do i go about grabbing? like unless it's a painfully obvious im-going-to-get-him hard read, im having a lot of trouble making grabs work in general..
maybe it's just a habit thing being a marth player, and i should just try to use them less on zss?

Grabbing with ZSS is always about surprising the opponent by rushing in with your grab box, or baiting then throwing out the grab box. For instance, if they roll away, you can dash grab forward which has fantastic range and grab them.
Standing grab is really slow, pivot grab is actually a little faster, so run one direction and the turn and grab at the same time, grab should come out quickly while you slide backwards, you can also pivot then boost forward if you time the pivot differently, or just dash grab (which is better than standing).

 

[burntfish44]

Grabbing with ZSS is always about surprising the opponent by rushing in with your grab box, or baiting then throwing out the grab box. For instance, if they roll away, you can dash grab forward which has fantastic range and grab them.
Standing grab is really slow, pivot grab is actually a little faster, so run one direction and the turn and grab at the same time, grab should come out quickly while you slide backwards, you can also pivot then boost forward if you time the pivot differently, or just dash grab (which is better than standing).

kk i shall work on these. Is wavedash into grab a decent tactic? whether it be to dash back for space or gapclose?

 

[SpiderMad]

You cannot footstool people while they are in a "paralyze" state. The range on footstool has not changed from Brawl, but you use up taunt to footstool.

Has anyone produced a picture of the size of footstool's "applicable" hit-box/size-bubble?

. As far as her two tethers go there range is as follows (this is an approximation from experience), I'm pretty sure there is a dead zone.

Hmmm, do you think you could make an estimated one for say battlefield/smashville? Do you think it truly follows shapes like that?

 

[burntfish44]

Has anyone produced a picture of the size of footstool's "applicable" hit-box/size-bubble?

Hmmm, do you think you could make an estimated one for say battlefield/smashville? Do you think it truly follows shapes like that?

I'd place the side b box higher.. by the time you get to even with the stage if you arent already casting side b youre gonna die - it just has a pretty long cast time to it.
Then again ive grown to prefer down-b directed over towards the stage in that position anyways - it just seems more reliable (though a bit more risky depending on your opponents edgeguarding capabilities)
For up b it's fairly accurate - you definitely get the feel for where her up b works and where it doesnt though after playing a couple hours

 

[SpiderMad]

I think the Up-b blue area needs to be closer to FD though I'm not super familiar with playing on FD that often
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbGkMzlwnLc&list=UUC_duOivBOekU6LS3_8w25A pause and put your cursor over the time and youll see its pretty down under though for FD it pry is more strict

 

[ph00tbag]

No, there's pretty much a straight line down from any ledge towards the stage from which you can no longer grab the ledge. That chart seems more or less accurate. I think the angle of the outer boundary is actually a bit steeper, but with a higher y-intercept, because there's also the range where Plasma Wire's animation is canceled with a ledge grab.