Play Optimal! Precision is Samus's KEY!

[Shuckle_SSB]

To me, the most optimal thing to start a match off is definitely charging up a CS. Of course this is obvious to any of us.
This does however change in certain MU's (such as Sheik, Fox, any characters with a quick stage-wide projectile). But most of the time I'll find myself doing this because it makes our opponents second guess their approaches in the early neutral fear to the CS being released early. Any un-safe aerial on our shield from charging CS can also just be punished with an Up B OoS.
So basically, always try to start off with a CS to stay strong in the early neutral game.

What I'm wondering though is, what is Samus's most "optimal" option/combo at 0%? I feel it is dash attack (early hit) to Uair, Uair, Up B. This is if you don't want to stale your CS though. The other best option I feel it the same two beginning hits; dash attack, Uair, then immediate double jump CS. Finding your dash attack opening at 0% is the only hard task. I'm sure that you're all up for the mission though.

 

[Metallinatus]

I like to actually start the match releasing one uncharged shot just for the sake of zoning a little bit before starting to actually charge a shot. This can slow down any character that like to get in your face right away a bit.
If I see a Fox or Falco I just immediately jump and try to make my own aerial approach....

 

[Xygonn]

I like to actually start the match releasing one uncharged shot just for the sake of zoning a little bit before starting to actually charge a shot. This can slow down any character that like to get in your face right away a bit.
If I see a Fox or Falco I just immediately jump and try to make my own aerial approach....

I don't like to stale CS first thing with an uncharged shot. Ick.

 

[Metallinatus]

I don't like to stale CS first thing with an uncharged shot. Ick.

You just need to hit some 3 other moves to un-stale it....
That is specially easy to do when you need to fully charge the shot to turn it into.... a charged shot. Lots of time to hit other moves in there.
But that is just me, I don't mind throwing uncharged shots.... the opponent may be even easier to hit with half charged ones since he is usually not expecting us to shot before finish the charge.
And of course, when he is at high percentage you usually have time to charge it all in one go, so it is usually not the time to spend "unfully" charged shots there. But when talking about early stock....

 

[Shuckle_SSB]

I don't mind staling it early on either because more likely than not, it'll be fresh once they're at kill percent.
The idea of keeping one fully charged early game though is to just have that cannon flashing, and your opponent respecting you more throughout the neutral.

 

[Shuckle_SSB]

Also I fixed the OP, I meant to write "optimal" option.
My B.

 

[KayJay]

The most optimal scenario without a guessing game at 0% is a hitconfirmed dash attack so you can do a guaranteed ~43% damage 24 hit true combo. (DA -> FJ U-Air -> DJ U-Air -> Up B).
You can even raise the dmg (~51%) if you hit them with a Super Missile before you true combo into the dash attack combo. But Dash Attack as the combostarter is more safe than the Super Missile in the neutral.

 

[JAZZ_]

I charge at 0% and jump out of charge when the opponent approaches using shield canceling the charge and canceling the shield with jump before the shield comes out giving a smooth jump out of charge. Samus is one of the best characters at doing this technique and makes punishing falcons and other rush downs super easy.

 

[Vyrnx]

I've stopped charging CS at the beginning for the most part. It lets your opponent rush at you and gives up a lot of stage control. I usually start with running towards the middle of the stage and using zair, then looking for a dash attack. Against faster characters or characters who I'm not confident using zair on, I'll still run towards them and do stuff like pp utilt, pivot ftilt, or try to react to whatever their approach is. Running to the middle and using zair either keeps the opponent trapped on the side of the stage, or if they shield, puts them at midrange where Samus probably wins. Also aggressive Samus tends to surprise people at the start of a match.

I usually don't charge CS until I hit the opponent with a fair out of a combo at mid percents, or other moves with decent knock back like nair/bair/dtilt.

I also think super missiles are just generally a bad thing to start a match with. The opponent can jump over them and you lose stage control, but unlike losing stage control by charging CS, super missiling won't help you out later like a charged/partially charged CS can.

 

[(A)]

I've stopped charging CS at the beginning for the most part. It lets your opponent rush at you and gives up a lot of stage control. I usually start with running towards the middle of the stage and using zair, then looking for a dash attack. Against faster characters or characters who I'm not confident using zair on, I'll still run towards them and do stuff like pp utilt, pivot ftilt, or try to react to whatever their approach is. Running to the middle and using zair either keeps the opponent trapped on the side of the stage, or if they shield, puts them at midrange where Samus probably wins. Also aggressive Samus tends to surprise people at the start of a match.

I usually don't charge CS until I hit the opponent with a fair out of a combo at mid percents, or other moves with decent knock back like nair/bair/dtilt.

I also think super missiles are just generally a bad thing to start a match with. The opponent can jump over them and you lose stage control, but unlike losing stage control by charging CS, super missiling won't help you out later like a charged/partially charged CS can.

You are right, if you shoot a supermissile you loose stage control, but in my experience also depends on the matchup, i play a lot against sheik (my training partner mains sheik), so personally when i suspect he will start the match charging neddles i shoot a super missile in order to trade/shield presure. So my conclusion depends alot on the match up,against a fox for example they usually starts up shooting lasers so i start z-airing.

 

[Annihilat®]

No matter how long you hold the Charge Shot, it will never unstale. Kinda stupid if ya ask since it's our main kill. This just kills the amount of mind gaming we can do since no one really wants a stale CS.

 

[Shuckle_SSB]

The most optimal scenario without a guessing game at 0% is a hitconfirmed dash attack so you can do a guaranteed ~43% damage 24 hit true combo. (DA -> FJ U-Air -> DJ U-Air -> Up B).
You can even raise the dmg (~51%) if you hit them with a Super Missile before you true combo into the dash attack combo. But Dash Attack as the combostarter is more safe than the Super Missile in the neutral.

Thank you for your input.

 

[Shuckle_SSB]

No matter how long you hold the Charge Shot, it will never unstale. Kinda stupid if ya ask since it's our main kill. This just kills the amount of mind gaming we can do since no one really wants a stale CS.

It doesn't? Hmm, I guess I need to refresh on how staling actually works then.

 

[Shuckle_SSB]

Also just to let you guys know, this thread is open to any optimal Samus talk. If you have anything to say, go for it. Maybe some of us may learn something we don't already.
Like super missile true comboing into zair.

 

[DungeonMaster]

As a general rule in fighting games you don't want to be predictable, so the optimal game plan is vary it considerably.
Within the combo tree you definitely want to try for an early dash attack, grab. Then migrate towards up-tilt and finally d-air and super-missile. But the tree is *quite* broad, you can mixup to nair combos, b-air combos and straight up-air or early up-tilt.
I've been working for months now on combo "trees", it will see the light of day soon, but until then the flashiest, highest damage, combo tree is the max-dash into d-air tree.
Against any character, if you can succeed at the maximum your dash attack will allow, say dash attack -> up-air -> up-air -> up-B vs. mario or dash-attack -> up-air -> up-B vs say kirby (that's all his physics will allow) then you know they are primed for the maximum d-air combo. You don't need to do the math in the combo thread, you just know after you've landed the max dash then you can aim for d-air -> up-air -> CS (the big one) or d-air -> CS (the easy one) or d-air -> up-smash (the no-charge-shot-ready variant).
So if you want to have fun optimizing, try that. Combo trees are how we will eventually squeeze out the optimal damage from this character, accessing the plethora of narrow range Samus combos.

 

[Shuckle_SSB]

As a general rule in fighting games you don't want to be predictable, so the optimal game plan is vary it considerably.
Within the combo tree you definitely want to try for an early dash attack, grab. Then migrate towards up-tilt and finally d-air and super-missile. But the tree is *quite* broad, you can mixup to nair combos, b-air combos and straight up-air or early up-tilt.
I've been working for months now on combo "trees", it will see the light of day soon, but until then the flashiest, highest damage, combo tree is the max-dash into d-air tree.
Against any character, if you can succeed at the maximum your dash attack will allow, say dash attack -> up-air -> up-air -> up-B vs. mario or dash-attack -> up-air -> up-B vs say kirby (that's all his physics will allow) then you know they are primed for the maximum d-air combo. You don't need to do the math in the combo thread, you just know after you've landed the max dash then you can aim for d-air -> up-air -> CS (the big one) or d-air -> CS (the easy one) or d-air -> up-smash (the no-charge-shot-ready variant).
So if you want to have fun optimizing, try that. Combo trees are how we will eventually squeeze out the optimal damage from this character, accessing the plethora of narrow range Samus combos.

A lot of the terms you are using I wasn't so sure of, but I believe I understand what you're getting at.
I can't wait to see those "trees." I'm always looking to learn more things about our character.

 

[-_ellipsis_-]

A lot of the terms you are using I wasn't so sure of, but I believe I understand what you're getting at.
I can't wait to see those "trees." I'm always looking to learn more things about our character.

Example time!

Upb Sweetspot bair
^ ^
Upair Upb CS nair sourspot bair
^ ^ ^ ^ ^
Upair nair
^ ^
Dash attack, 0%

This is an example of a "combo tree".

 

[Shuckle_SSB]

Example time!

Upb Sweetspot bair
^ ^
Upair Upb CS nair sourspot bair
^ ^ ^ ^ ^
Upair nair
^ ^
Dash attack, 0%

This is an example of a "combo tree".

I don't follow. Sorry.

 

[-_ellipsis_-]

A lot of the terms you are using I wasn't so sure of, but I believe I understand what you're getting at.
I can't wait to see those "trees." I'm always looking to learn more things about our character.

edit : I'll make a document in a bit and upload it. Better formatting.

 

[Shuckle_SSB]

Sounds good. Thank you.

 

[Shuckle_SSB]

edit : I'll make a document in a bit and upload it. Better formatting.

I forgot to quote. Not sure if necessary but just being sure.

 

[Xygonn]

Example time!

Upb                                   Sweetspot bair
     ^                                       ^
Upair           Upb   CS   nair    sourspot bair
      ^          ^    ^     ^        ^
                       Upair                                   nair
                         ^                                        ^
                             Dash attack, 0%

This is an example of a "combo tree".

Fixed

 

[DungeonMaster]

Yeah sorry if it's cryptic but by "combo tree" I mean "guaranteed follow up combo" and specifically my recent revelation has been the "if I fail - what is my next combo?" component.
So for example the one I mentioned in this thread: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCYCj3et36U#t=473
You can see the max dash land on mewtwo then the d-air->up-air->CS. That's guaranteed. Every time you have ever landed that dash-up-air-up-air-up-B you could have followed up with d-air -> up-air -> CS.

The revelation I had recently has to do with "failing". So let's say I "fail" to land dash->up-air->up-air->up-B. Let's say I only get the 2nd up-air and my opponent squirms out of the final up-B. It was right there, you could have landed the up-B, but the opponent squirmed out or you missed your input. But you *could* have landed it, it just failed to materialize.
What to do? As it turns out, up-tilt->up-air->CS.
This is across the board, you can do this against any character.
So you can't land dash->up-air->up-air->up-B on Kirby. Doesn't work. His physics has him invariably escape the Up-B. You're only ever going to get the 2nd up-air.
That's the "max" you're ever going to get out of your dash attack. Guess what? D-air -> up-air -> CS is precisely at the percent where you get the max out of your dash attack. You can simply immediately
aim for that combo, you know you got the max out of your dash attack, the big d-air combo is now available.
And what if you fail? Say you only get Dash -> up-air, and miss the 2nd follow up. Guess what? He's now precisely at the Up-tilt -> up-air -> CS sweetspot percentage.
Go into training mode and try this.

It's a little bit more complicated than that outside of training mode, but really not too much, and the key to understanding the subtleties of rage and staleness are visual cues, but I will need to make a video to properly describe it.

Essentially we have this giant list of stuff Samus can do and we only use a fraction of it because we're simply unable to guess at the optimal follow up.
All of those narrow range combos which "seem" out of place, stuff like d-throw -> f-air -> f-air, you know, we've been doing them, but kinda randomly, haphazardly, we just go for it at some point but we're not really *sure*, because it operates in such a damn narrow window, 10%, between 24% and 34% damage on ROB. And if it does work, it ends up in a highlight video (*Yay stars aligned, look something cool!*). But that's not the way it should be. You can KNOW when to do it.
The key insight is that the narrow window combos, they're often actually sweetspoting when you "fail" at another combo.

Give me time guys, there's another level to this character, I see it clearly now.

 

[Ryu Myuutsu]

Yeah sorry if it's cryptic but by "combo tree" I mean "guaranteed follow up combo" and specifically my recent revelation has been the "if I fail - what is my next combo?" component.
So for example the one I mentioned in this thread: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCYCj3et36U#t=473
You can see the max dash land on mewtwo then the d-air->up-air->CS. That's guaranteed. Every time you have ever landed that dash-up-air-up-air-up-B you could have followed up with d-air -> up-air -> CS.

The revelation I had recently has to do with "failing". So let's say I "fail" to land dash->up-air->up-air->up-B. Let's say I only get the 2nd up-air and my opponent squirms out of the final up-B. It was right there, you could have landed the up-B, but the opponent squirmed out or you missed your input. But you *could* have landed it, it just failed to materialize.
What to do? As it turns out, up-tilt->up-air->CS.
This is across the board, you can do this against any character.
So you can't land dash->up-air->up-air->up-B on Kirby. Doesn't work. His physics has him invariably escape the Up-B. You're only ever going to get the 2nd up-air.
That's the "max" you're ever going to get out of your dash attack. Guess what? D-air -> up-air -> CS is precisely at the percent where you get the max out of your dash attack. You can simply immediately
aim for that combo, you know you got the max out of your dash attack, the big d-air combo is now available.
And what if you fail? Say you only get Dash -> up-air, and miss the 2nd follow up. Guess what? He's now precisely at the Up-tilt -> up-air -> CS sweetspot percentage.
Go into training mode and try this.

It's a little bit more complicated than that outside of training mode, but really not too much, and the key to understanding the subtleties of rage and staleness are visual cues, but I will need to make a video to properly describe it.

Essentially we have this giant list of stuff Samus can do and we only use a fraction of it because we're simply unable to guess at the optimal follow up.
All of those narrow range combos which "seem" out of place, stuff like d-throw -> f-air -> f-air, you know, we've been doing them, but kinda randomly, haphazardly, we just go for it at some point but we're not really *sure*, because it operates in such a damn narrow window, 10%, between 24% and 34% damage on ROB. And if it does work, it ends up in a highlight video (*Yay stars aligned, look something cool!*). But that's not the way it should be. You can KNOW when to do it.
The key insight is that the narrow window combos, they're often actually sweetspoting when you "fail" at another combo.

Give me time guys, there's another level to this character, I see it clearly now.

I have to say, that is an amazing video. Samus has flaws for sure but she also has a lot going for her and I hate to see people dismiss her as the "worst" character in the game when ignoring stuff like the combo tree you mentioned earlier.
Have you guys forwarded this video to Sakurai already?

 

[-_ellipsis_-]

Yeah sorry if it's cryptic but by "combo tree" I mean "guaranteed follow up combo" and specifically my recent revelation has been the "if I fail - what is my next combo?" component.
So for example the one I mentioned in this thread: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCYCj3et36U#t=473
You can see the max dash land on mewtwo then the d-air->up-air->CS. That's guaranteed. Every time you have ever landed that dash-up-air-up-air-up-B you could have followed up with d-air -> up-air -> CS.

The revelation I had recently has to do with "failing". So let's say I "fail" to land dash->up-air->up-air->up-B. Let's say I only get the 2nd up-air and my opponent squirms out of the final up-B. It was right there, you could have landed the up-B, but the opponent squirmed out or you missed your input. But you *could* have landed it, it just failed to materialize.
What to do? As it turns out, up-tilt->up-air->CS.
This is across the board, you can do this against any character.
So you can't land dash->up-air->up-air->up-B on Kirby. Doesn't work. His physics has him invariably escape the Up-B. You're only ever going to get the 2nd up-air.
That's the "max" you're ever going to get out of your dash attack. Guess what? D-air -> up-air -> CS is precisely at the percent where you get the max out of your dash attack. You can simply immediately
aim for that combo, you know you got the max out of your dash attack, the big d-air combo is now available.
And what if you fail? Say you only get Dash -> up-air, and miss the 2nd follow up. Guess what? He's now precisely at the Up-tilt -> up-air -> CS sweetspot percentage.
Go into training mode and try this.

It's a little bit more complicated than that outside of training mode, but really not too much, and the key to understanding the subtleties of rage and staleness are visual cues, but I will need to make a video to properly describe it.

Essentially we have this giant list of stuff Samus can do and we only use a fraction of it because we're simply unable to guess at the optimal follow up.
All of those narrow range combos which "seem" out of place, stuff like d-throw -> f-air -> f-air, you know, we've been doing them, but kinda randomly, haphazardly, we just go for it at some point but we're not really *sure*, because it operates in such a damn narrow window, 10%, between 24% and 34% damage on ROB. And if it does work, it ends up in a highlight video (*Yay stars aligned, look something cool!*). But that's not the way it should be. You can KNOW when to do it.
The key insight is that the narrow window combos, they're often actually sweetspoting when you "fail" at another combo.

Give me time guys, there's another level to this character, I see it clearly now.

I've never heard the term "combo tree" used like that before, but it looks good!

I should also note is how after an uptilt combo is missed, such as if they tech it, you just unlocked your dair combos, especially the jablock tech chases against fast fallers.

+ thanks for the formatting, xygonn

 

[Shuckle_SSB]

Yeah sorry if it's cryptic but by "combo tree" I mean "guaranteed follow up combo" and specifically my recent revelation has been the "if I fail - what is my next combo?" component.
So for example the one I mentioned in this thread: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCYCj3et36U#t=473
You can see the max dash land on mewtwo then the d-air->up-air->CS. That's guaranteed. Every time you have ever landed that dash-up-air-up-air-up-B you could have followed up with d-air -> up-air -> CS.

The revelation I had recently has to do with "failing". So let's say I "fail" to land dash->up-air->up-air->up-B. Let's say I only get the 2nd up-air and my opponent squirms out of the final up-B. It was right there, you could have landed the up-B, but the opponent squirmed out or you missed your input. But you *could* have landed it, it just failed to materialize.
What to do? As it turns out, up-tilt->up-air->CS.
This is across the board, you can do this against any character.
So you can't land dash->up-air->up-air->up-B on Kirby. Doesn't work. His physics has him invariably escape the Up-B. You're only ever going to get the 2nd up-air.
That's the "max" you're ever going to get out of your dash attack. Guess what? D-air -> up-air -> CS is precisely at the percent where you get the max out of your dash attack. You can simply immediately
aim for that combo, you know you got the max out of your dash attack, the big d-air combo is now available.
And what if you fail? Say you only get Dash -> up-air, and miss the 2nd follow up. Guess what? He's now precisely at the Up-tilt -> up-air -> CS sweetspot percentage.
Go into training mode and try this.

It's a little bit more complicated than that outside of training mode, but really not too much, and the key to understanding the subtleties of rage and staleness are visual cues, but I will need to make a video to properly describe it.

Essentially we have this giant list of stuff Samus can do and we only use a fraction of it because we're simply unable to guess at the optimal follow up.
All of those narrow range combos which "seem" out of place, stuff like d-throw -> f-air -> f-air, you know, we've been doing them, but kinda randomly, haphazardly, we just go for it at some point but we're not really *sure*, because it operates in such a damn narrow window, 10%, between 24% and 34% damage on ROB. And if it does work, it ends up in a highlight video (*Yay stars aligned, look something cool!*). But that's not the way it should be. You can KNOW when to do it.
The key insight is that the narrow window combos, they're often actually sweetspoting when you "fail" at another combo.

Give me time guys, there's another level to this character, I see it clearly now.

I'm starting to understand you more. And I actually already know what you are talking about. Its a lot to cover though, definitely.
I hope we can further discuss this whenever we have the chance.

 

[DungeonMaster]

I have to say, that is an amazing video. Samus has flaws for sure but she also has a lot going for her and I hate to see people dismiss her as the "worst" character in the game when ignoring stuff like the combo tree you mentioned earlier.
Have you guys forwarded this video to Sakurai already?

Thanks, at lot of people's efforts went into it, I believe many people forwarded it to Nintendo. Ironically the day it released was the day he won an award for "design", so it didn't feel appropriate to just blast it at his twitter account at that time. I think we are all hoping some additional basic problems are resolved in the upcoming patch.
If not - I see your location is in Japan - would you be willing to translate to Japanese? I have Japanese friends, but sadly none of them play fighting games and don't know the game specific lingo.

 

[Hark17ball]

Yeah sorry if it's cryptic but by "combo tree" I mean "guaranteed follow up combo" and specifically my recent revelation has been the "if I fail - what is my next combo?" component.
So for example the one I mentioned in this thread: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCYCj3et36U#t=473
You can see the max dash land on mewtwo then the d-air->up-air->CS. That's guaranteed. Every time you have ever landed that dash-up-air-up-air-up-B you could have followed up with d-air -> up-air -> CS.

The revelation I had recently has to do with "failing". So let's say I "fail" to land dash->up-air->up-air->up-B. Let's say I only get the 2nd up-air and my opponent squirms out of the final up-B. It was right there, you could have landed the up-B, but the opponent squirmed out or you missed your input. But you *could* have landed it, it just failed to materialize.
What to do? As it turns out, up-tilt->up-air->CS.
This is across the board, you can do this against any character.
So you can't land dash->up-air->up-air->up-B on Kirby. Doesn't work. His physics has him invariably escape the Up-B. You're only ever going to get the 2nd up-air.
That's the "max" you're ever going to get out of your dash attack. Guess what? D-air -> up-air -> CS is precisely at the percent where you get the max out of your dash attack. You can simply immediately
aim for that combo, you know you got the max out of your dash attack, the big d-air combo is now available.
And what if you fail? Say you only get Dash -> up-air, and miss the 2nd follow up. Guess what? He's now precisely at the Up-tilt -> up-air -> CS sweetspot percentage.
Go into training mode and try this.

It's a little bit more complicated than that outside of training mode, but really not too much, and the key to understanding the subtleties of rage and staleness are visual cues, but I will need to make a video to properly describe it.

Essentially we have this giant list of stuff Samus can do and we only use a fraction of it because we're simply unable to guess at the optimal follow up.
All of those narrow range combos which "seem" out of place, stuff like d-throw -> f-air -> f-air, you know, we've been doing them, but kinda randomly, haphazardly, we just go for it at some point but we're not really *sure*, because it operates in such a damn narrow window, 10%, between 24% and 34% damage on ROB. And if it does work, it ends up in a highlight video (*Yay stars aligned, look something cool!*). But that's not the way it should be. You can KNOW when to do it.
The key insight is that the narrow window combos, they're often actually sweetspoting when you "fail" at another combo.

Give me time guys, there's another level to this character, I see it clearly now.

Dude this whole post got me so excited. Really love the passion and insight you bring to us all, thanks so much.

 

[DungeonMaster]

Thanks!
Yeah I couldn't spend the time in the Brawl era, this time around, I decided to master this character. I probably will not have time/opportunity to be a tournament presence, so I really want to see you guys succeed.
It will be a little bit longer, I'm still finding things and I'm trying to get it all correct on the first try. I've been in the lab for the past week, I want to try and get a video out maybe in 2 weeks.
At least to lay the ground work and hit the major point, I think there's plenty of room to contribute in details.
You know those cool up-tilt -> up-air -> CS combos I'm so fond of? Once you've landed that one, you're at the sweet spot for up-air (soft) -> jab1 -> f-smash. It's like magic.
More than ever I'm convinced with sufficient skill and mastery of everything Samus can do, you basically just annihilate someone in just a few hit confirms.

 

[Ryu Myuutsu]

Thanks, at lot of people's efforts went into it, I believe many people forwarded it to Nintendo. Ironically the day it released was the day he won an award for "design", so it didn't feel appropriate to just blast it at his twitter account at that time. I think we are all hoping some additional basic problems are resolved in the upcoming patch.
If not - I see your location is in Japan - would you be willing to translate to Japanese? I have Japanese friends, but sadly none of them play fighting games and don't know the game specific lingo.

Actually, I still have trouble with the Smash lingo in japanese. I play with a friend of mine and I ask him every time I want to know how to say something regarding the game such as tilts, landing lag, frame data, etc. I will forward the video around to some of them though, maybe through twitter so I can bring more attention to this.

 

[DungeonMaster]

Thanks Ryu Myuutsu , we're all hoping some of the issues in the video get resolved in the upcoming patch, if not we should definitely talk about getting a translation done.
They've announced it will be the last smashbros nintendo direct, and it may be they don't intend to patch very much afterwards. I anticipate a patch or two after the new challengers, but not too much after that.

 

[Shuckle_SSB]

A few questions that I feel I should ask you guys has just popped up. I feel it doesn't exactly need a new thread, so I'll just put it here since this thread has to do with playing Samus optimally anyways.

So the questions are:
-What do you personally find to be Samus's optimal controller setup?
-What controller/controller setup do you use?
-What button layout do you use along with it?

-I personally use the Game Cube Controller, and from the default settings only change a few things.

-I turn off rumble (I heard it actually deteriorates your control faster, and I don't want that lol).

-I set Y to shield (for quicker techs if needed, since Y will come out faster than pressing R for shield).

-I set L to jump (this is for making a quicker double jump from the ground, or short hop Charge Shot should I ever need it).

-And most recently I've set my C-Stick to Attack (I used to have it set to smash for quicker and more reliable punished from say shield breaks or anything else, but I know that setting it to attack is definitely the better route. It allows perfect pivot tilts, which Samus benefits GREATLY from. And it helps my personal bad habit of trying to spam Fsmash for a punish. It's usually too slow and it gets shielded, so Ftilt is the better punish in those cases. The main reason though is defenitely the easier perfect pivots. Her perfect pivot D & Utilt are just so good.)

-And lastly, I cannot really decide on having tap jump on or off. I am able to play with both fine. The only thing that I see affecting my gameplay is not being able to Up B OoS (Out of Shield) as quickly and easily when it is turned off. Other than that, keeping it on is probably the best option anyways. Well, at least for me.

What do you all think?

 

[Hark17ball]

X/L- Jump
R- Shield
Z/Y- Grab
A- Attack
B- Specials
CStick- Attack

I have Y as grab mostly for super quick Zairs when jumping. It's just a bit faster for me to lean my thumb over X&Y

Tap Jump
Rumble
A+B Smash
All off

 

[Shuckle_SSB]

X/L- Jump
R- Shield
Z/Y- Grab
A- Attack
B- Specials
CStick- Attack

I have Y as grab mostly for super quick Zairs when jumping. It's just a bit faster for me to lean my thumb over X&Y

Tap Jump
Rumble
A+B Smash
All off

The quicker Zairs does seem handy. I also forgot to mention that SHAD is easier with Y set to shield. At least for me.

 

[Xygonn]

A few questions that I feel I should ask you guys has just popped up. I feel it doesn't exactly need a new thread, so I'll just put it here since this thread has to do with playing Samus optimally anyways.

So the questions are:
-What do you personally find to be Samus's optimal controller setup?
-What controller/controller setup do you use?
-What button layout do you use along with it?

-I personally use the Game Cube Controller, and from the default settings only change a few things.

-I turn off rumble (I heard it actually deteriorates your control faster, and I don't want that lol).

-I set Y to shield (for quicker techs if needed, since Y will come out faster than pressing R for shield).

-I set L to jump (this is for making a quicker double jump from the ground, or short hop Charge Shot should I ever need it).

-And most recently I've set my C-Stick to Attack (I used to have it set to smash for quicker and more reliable punished from say shield breaks or anything else, but I know that setting it to attack is definitely the better route. It allows perfect pivot tilts, which Samus benefits GREATLY from. And it helps my personal bad habit of trying to spam Fsmash for a punish. It's usually too slow and it gets shielded, so Ftilt is the better punish in those cases. The main reason though is defenitely the easier perfect pivots. Her perfect pivot D & Utilt are just so good.)

-And lastly, I cannot really decide on having tap jump on or off. I am able to play with both fine. The only thing that I see affecting my gameplay is not being able to Up B OoS (Out of Shield) as quickly and easily when it is turned off. Other than that, keeping it on is probably the best option anyways. Well, at least for me.

What do you all think?

I mostly play with the CC Pro, but I still play enough with GCC to be comfortable with it. The many years of melee and brawl make it a natural transition.

All:
Tap jump off
Stick set to attack
For serious play dpad set to jump up and down, shield left and right for better mashing (IMO, this still seems to be a point of contention).

CC Pro (and Gamepad):

Y - Special
B - Attack
X/A - Jump
L/Lz- Shield (I slide from one to the other when I SHAD OoS)
Rz- Jump
R - Grab

GCC
R-Jump, otherwise default

 

[Shuckle_SSB]

I mostly play with the CC Pro, but I still play enough with GCC to be comfortable with it. The many years of melee and brawl make it a natural transition.

All:
Tap jump off
Stick set to attack
For serious play dpad set to jump up and down, shield left and right for better mashing (IMO, this still seems to be a point of contention).

CC Pro (and Gamepad):

Y - Special
B - Attack
X/A - Jump
L/Lz- Shield (I slide from one to the other when I SHAD OoS)
Rz- Jump
R - Grab

GCC
R-Jump, otherwise default

I almost have never used a CC Pro. I find your button layout pretty interesting. I would in all honesty love to use a Wii U Pro since its just so light and comfortable, but its just so pricey... and has the potential to be annoying to sync, de-sync, and possible input lag. idk.
Oh and it allows really easy PP inputs with the A+B=SMASH trick.